UC-NRLF 


SB    MS    77fl 


Hmtirraitg  of 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  MEANING 
IN  PRAGMATISM  AND  NEO-REALISM 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 

OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LJTEEATUBE 
IN  CANDIDACY  FOB  THE  DEGREE  OP 
DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


DEPARTMENT  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


BY 


RUFUS  NORMAN  BOARDMAN 


EXCHANGE 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The  following  dissertation  represents  a  real  growth  in  my 
interpretation  of  the  pragmatist-realist  controversy.  Need- 
less to  say,  it  does  not  aim  to  settle  the  dispute  but  rather  to 
make  more  articulate  the  issue  between  the  two  schools.  It 
is  hoped  that  the  position  taken  herein  may  be  found  helpful 
and  stimulating. 

Since  this  study  was  undertaken  a  new  species  of  realism 
has  been  evolved.  I  have  not  attempted  to  incorporate  Criti- 
cal Realism  into  the  discussion  as  I  do  not  regard  it  as  es- 
sentially different  from  other  types  of  realism.  Realism  is 
realism  despite  its  various  species. 

It  has  been  my  aim  to  be  fair  to  both  viewpoints  through- 
out the  discussion.  For  my  sympathetic  understanding  of  the 
realistic  position,  I  am  indebted  to  Professors  R.  B.  Perry  and 
E.  G.  Spaulding  of  Harvard  and  Princeton  Universities  respec- 
tively. I  wish  also  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  the  men 
of  the  Philosophy  Department  in  The  University  of  Chicago, 
particularly  to  Professors  G.  H.  Mead  and  A.  W.  Moore  of 
that  department.  For  many  suggestions  in  connection  with 
its  publication  and  for  his  help  in  reading  the  proofs,  I  owe 
much  to  my  friend,  Dr.  H.  S.  Mahood. 

R.  N.  B. 


593570 


CONTENTS 


Introduction 


CHAPTER  I 
The  Absolutistic-Idealistic  Background  4 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Position  of  Meaning  in  Realism 22 

CHAPTER  III 
Pragmatism  and  Meaning 39 

CHAPTER  IV 
Comparative  Valuation  ..  55 


The  Significance  of  Meaning  in  Pragmatism 
and  Neo-Realism 


INTRODUCTION 

The  philosophy  of  a  period  reflects  the  method  which  its 
science  employs.  To  such  an  extent  is  this  true  that  the  entire 
social  structure  is  permeated  with  its  effects.  This  has  never 
been  better  illustrated  than  in  the  contrast  between  modern 
and  Aristotelian  science.  Ancient  science  was  a  matter  of 
definition  and  classification.  A  thing  was  known  according 
to  its  essential  attributes;  to  determine  these  and  thus  place 
the  individual  or  the  thing  in  his  or  its  logical  position  in  the 
natural  hierarchy  were  the  two  main  objects  of  science.  The 
world  was  arranged  in  a  complex  order  of  genera  and  species 
with  their  various  differentia.  This  method  of  classification 
held  sway  until  the  beginning  of  the  modern  period  with  the 
introduction  of  the  so-called  "inductive"  method.  The  biologi- 
cal sciences  were  the  last  to  be  influenced  by  the  new  move- 
ment, and  it  was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  that  the  old  method  crumbled  under  its  own  weight 
in  these  sciences.  The  naturalist  had  erected  such  an  intri- 
cate, complex  classificatory  table  of  organic  and  vital  phenom- 
ena that  it  was  only  natural  that  active  minds  should  seek  an 
explanation  as  to  the  origin  of,  and  the  relationship  between, 
the  different  orders  which  nature  presented.  The  old  method 
thus  paved  the  way  for  the  introduction  of  the  evolutionary 
hypothesis  which  found  its  best  expression  in  the  celebrated 
work  of  Darwin. 

The  influence  of  Aristotelianism  upon  the  social  fabric 
is  shown  by  the  order  of  society  which  arose  through  the 
mediaeval  feudal  structure.  Both  the  church  and  the  state 
were  organized  upon  this  basis  and  indeed  the  entire  papal 
controversy,  stated  in  logical  terms,  was  as  to  which  should 
be  the  Summum  Genus  or  the  Genus  Generalissium — the  king 
or  the  pope.  Both  were  agreed  that  this  dignified  position, 


m  Pragmatism  and  Realism 


properly  speaking,  belonged  to  the  Deity,  but  after  giving  Him 
this  recognition,  they  were  quite  content  to  give  Him  the  celes- 
tial while  they  should  have  the  terrestrial  world  for  them- 
selves. In  fact  the  history  of  democracy  from  the  exacting  of 
Magna  Charta  from  King  John  in  1215,  the  Petition  of  Rights 
of  1628  and  Bill  of  Rights  of  1688,  down  through  the  French 
and  American  revolutions,  the  upheavals  of  continental  Europe 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to  the  great  world 
war,  are  nothing  more  than  attempts  to  rid  the  world  of  an 
Aristotelian  society.  The  task  is  by  no  means  complete  as 
the  present  situation  indicates. 

Modern  science  is  not  interested  in  the  essence  of  things. 
It  is  not  the  "what"  as  such,  but  the  "what  it  does,"  from  which 
modern  science  takes  its  cue.  How  does  the  thing  act  ?  What 
is  its  function  ?  What  does  it  mean?*  These  are  the  questions 
from  which  present-day  science  takes  its  departure  from  an- 
•cient  science.  So  in  a  democratic  society  we  are  not  interested 
in  who  an  individual  happens  to  be  but  in  what  he  can  do. 
His  mere  being  is  of  no  great  consequence  either  one  way  or 
the  other.  His  name,  just  as  that  of  a  thing,  stands  for  a 
:meaning,  a  function,  a  work  that  is  done.  The  determination 
of  the  "what"  or  the  "who"  is  important  only  in  so  far  as  it 
;  stands  for  a  convenient  symbol  which  represents  a  certain 
meaning,  a  definite  kind  of  activity  or  a  relatively  fixed  func- 
tion. A  thing  or  an  individual  is  as  it  or  he  functions. 

Since  the  downfall  of  scholasticism,  philosophy  has  con- 
stantly been  reminded  of  the  "sins  of  the  Fathers"  and  has 
been  subjected  to  the  most  adverse  criticism  because  of  its 
being  so  abstract  and  spculative,  so  impractical.  The  philoso- 
pher, in  his  attempt  to  find  Reality,  became  so  far  removed 
from  reality,  that  even  today  two  distinct  attitudes  toward 
him  are  quite  pronounced.  He  is  either  looked  upon  with  the 
greatest  of  reverence,  as  sort  of  an  awe  inspiring  individual  or 
is  treated  as  a  specimen  of  curiosity  or  as  a  personage  for  con- 
tempt. So  many  have  been  the  attempts  to  bring  philosophy 
back  to  earth  that  to  those  outside  the  philosophic  world, 
the  news  that  thinking  has  at  last  found  its  home  will  no 
doubt  be  received  with  some  degree  of  skepticism.  Especially 


*M«aning   is   here  useo   in    a   functional   sense.     The   Aristotelian    would   have   asked   this 
•question  but  his  meaning  would  have  referred  to  a  Platonic  essence. 


Introduction  3 

is  this  true  when  we  consider  Hegel's  most  admirable  attempt 
to  ally  philosophy  with  science  and  then  recall  how  his  efforts 
only  resulted  in  the  most  impossible  of  all  unintelligible 
philosophies !  However  this  may  be,  both  the  new  realism  and 
pragmatism  are  putting  forth  their  claims  to  do  this  very 
thing.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present  investigation  to  esti- 
mate the  claims  of  each  in  the  light  of  the  above  statement  as 
to  the  interests  of  science.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  Prof. 
Spaulding's  effort  to  "de-thingize"1  the  world  is  what  makes 
his  attitude  scientific.  Pragmatism  is  viewed  by  some  as  sort 
of  a  "second-edition  of  the  natural  sciences,"  while  some  real- 
ists have  accused  it  of  being  nothing  but  "naturalism  brought 
up-to-date."  Both  the  realist  and  the  pragmatist  are  agreed 
that  the  idealist  is  hopeless  when  it  comes  to  having  a  working 
criterion  for  truth  and  error,  but  each  accuses  the  other  of 
being  in  the  same  predicament.  Both  claim  to  be  equally 
scientific,  yet  their  logics  are  quite  different.  The  dissertation 
aims  to  show  the  concept  of  meaning  as  the  central  issue  in 
these  diverging  logics. 

Despite  Prof.  Spaulding's  contention  that  we  have 
philosophical  problems  quite  independent  of  their  history,2  it 
would  be  well  to  pause  and  see  if,  after  all,  the  historical  set- 
ting of  a  problem  does  not  affect  the  problem.  Perhaps  by  so 
doing  some  light  may  be  thrown  on  the  realistic-pragmatic 
controversy.  Had  Prof.  Spaulding  been  a  little  less  convinced 
that  philosophical  problems  persist  regardless  of  their  history, 
he  might  have  seen  that  his  own  New  Rationalism  is  pregnant 
with  conclusions  that  are  based  upon  a  logic  which  arose  out 
of  a  controversial  setting.  It  would  seem  quite  possible  to 
show  that  the  pragmatists  and  the  realists  find  their  different 
meanings  of  "meaning"  out  of  the  character  of  the  controver- 
sies from  which  the  schools  arose  and  that  consequently  their 
meanings  must  be  translated  into  a  different  setting  in  order 
to  apply  to  each  other.  The  following  chapter  aims  to  place 
the  respective  meanings  in  their  historical  setting. 


1.  The  New  Rationalism,  Ch.  III. 

2.  The  New  Rationalism,  Ch.  I. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Absolustic-Idealistic  Background 

If  there  be  anything  that  is  now  a  truism  it  is  the  fact  that 
we  cannot  hope  to  understand  any  movement  until  we  know 
something  of  the  circumstances  and  conditions  under  which  it 
arose,  the  historical  setting  and  the  social  background  which 
gave  rise  to  it.  In  thus  separating  ourselves  from  the  social 
milieu  in  which  we  happen  to  be  moving  and  putting  ourselves 
into  the  situation  we  are  trying  to  understand,  we  become 
sympathetic  or  are  at  least  better  able  to  approach  our  prob- 
lem with  a  sympathetic  attitude.  Failure  to  see  the  other 
man's  viewpoint  together  with  the  divine  approval  of  what 
happens  in  a  community  consciousness,  have  been  a  constant 
source  of  wars  and  struggles  in  the  past.  Although  the  think- 
ing world  has  long  been  rid  of  this  fallacy,  it  is  rather  inter- 
esting to  note  that  in  our  attitude  toward  the  recent  war  we 
have  been  as  absolute  and  dogmatic  in  our  judgments  as  peo- 
ple of  the  days  of  St.  Anselm  or  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 

Idealism  has  long  been  aware  of  the  necessity  of  getting 
things  in  their  proper  relation,  so  much  so  in  fact  that  it  has 
not  been  satisfied  in  stopping  with  anything  short  of  the  uni- 
verse. In  attempting  to  analyze  any  given  situation,  in  order 
properly  to  understand  it,  the  idealist  found  it  necessary  to 
drag  in  the  whole  universe,  so  intricate  is  the  relationship  be- 
tween things.  But  in  so  doing,  he  has  left  us  in  a  position 
little,  if  any,  better  than  we  were  with  our  tribal  consciousness. 
In  the  last  analysis,  idealism  has  only  substituted  an  Absolute 
approval  for  what  had  hitherto  been  communal,  thus  making 
the  causes  for  struggle  and  sources  for  misunderstandings  all 
the  more  intense. 

So,  in  order  to  see  clearly  the  issue  between  pragmatism 
and  realism  we  should,  at  least  for  a  few  moments,  detach 
ourselves  from  the  present  stage  of  the  conflict  and  enter  the 
discussions  where  the  movements  first  appear.  For  this  pur- 
pose let  us  follow  in  brief  some  of  the  developments  of  ro- 
mantic or  absolute  idealism. 


Historical  Background  5 

The  Unknowable  which  Kant  had  been  willing  to  leave 
as  such  except  for  the  mere  postulation  of  its  being,  became 
the  chief  interest  of  the  romanticists  and  it  was  to  get  in  touch 
with  the  world  ground  that  was  the  cause  of  all  their  strivings. 
Instead  of  remaining  unknowable  it  takes  the  form  of  an 
Absolute  Self  with  whom  it  is  the  business  of  human  selves 
to  get  in  communication.  In  so  doing  one  finds  his  true  self. 
It  is  only  in  losing  oneself  in  the  Absolute  that  one  finds  him- 
self. Human  personality  is  completely  lost  in  the  Absolute. 
When  this  is  accomplished  then  has  one  reached  the  highest 
state  of  perfection. 

Various  devices  for  getting  in  touch  with  the  Absolute 
began  to  appear.  For  Fichte  the  world  was  moral  to  the  core. 
It  was  made  as  it  is  that  the  moral  self  might  be  realized.  In 
overcoming  the  obstacles  which  the  world  everywhere  pre- 
sented, one  was  realizing  his  moral  self  and  was  thus  approach- 
ing nearer  to  the  goal  of  all  effort,  viz.,  that  of  becoming  the 
Absolute.  With  Schelling  the  world  presented  the  character- 
istics of  beauty  throughout.  He  saw  nature  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  artist.  The  artist  in  creating  his  object  was  only 
following  the  same  course  which  nature  was  everywhere  pur- 
suing. His  conception,  however,  is  a  little  more  positive 
than  that  of  Fichte's  for  with  Schelling  one  must  create  in 
order  to  get  in  touch  with  the  Absolute.  With  Fichte  it  was 
simply  a  matter  of  setting  up  an  object  only  to  knock  it  down 
again ;  in  so  doing  one  was  doing  his  duty ;  but  with  Schelling 
one  must  not  only  knock  down  the  fence  but  he  must  get  over 
it,  must  do  something,  must  create  something.  With  Hegel  the 
world  is  rational  through  and  through;  whatever  is,  is  ra- 
tional. It  is  through  Reason  that  one  finds  the  Absolute, 
Thought  is  only  the  Absolute  becoming  conscious  of  Himself, 
History  is  the  Absolute  Person  realizing  himself.  He  there- 
fore works  through  the  State ;  the  state  is  the  highest  embodi- 
ment of  Reason;  in  the  state  Reason  reaches  its  zenith.  In 
order  to  realize  oneself  one  must  give  oneself  up  to  the  state 
for  it  is  in  so  doing  that  one  identifies  himself  with  the  Abso- 
lute Reason.  It  is  this  aspect  of  Hegel's  philosophy  that 
Treitschke  made  explicit  and  which  together  with  Kant's  blind 
and  empty  categorical  imperative  to  which  it  gave  a  definite 


6  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

content,  that  has  no  doubt  given  a  tremendous  moral  and  re- 
ligious support  to  the  war.1 

Romantic  idealism,  in  its  endeavor  to  reduce  the  world 
and  all  that  is  to  a  single  personal  attribute,  had  deprived  it 
of  all  meaning  whatsoever.  The  dialectic2  proceeds  somewhat 
as  follows :  One  would  like  to  believe  that  the  world  is  of  the 
character  which  he  would  most  like  to  have  it.  A  moral  being 
introspects  his  own  consciousness  and  finds  a  moral  conscience 
within.  He  then  tries  to  make  nature  conform  to  the  concep- 
tion of  morality  which  he  finds.  But  when  he  examines  nature 
he  finds  facts  which  somehow  do  not  quite  measure  up  to  the 
conception  of  morality  with  which  he  started.  The  cyclones, 
tornadoes,  earthquakes  and  other  "unforeseen  acts  of  God"  do 
not  seem  "good"  in  the  sense  with  which  he  began  his  inquiry. 
They  do  not  meet  his  approval  but  how  shall  he  condemn  them 
for  are  they  not  good?  The  ultimate  character  of  things  is 
moral,  nevertheless.  It  may  be  barely  possible  that  he  has  been 
mistaken  as  to  what  constitutes  morality  and  since  the  nature 
of  things  is  moral,  his  conception  can  only  be  checked  up  by 
further  and  more  extended  observations  of  nature.  Thus  he 
may  do  either  of  two  things :  He  is  either  compelled  to  bring 
nature  up  to  the  ideal  conception  from  which  he  began  his  in- 
quiry or  is  forced  to  lower  his  own  conception  so  as  to  include 
the  wars,  famines,  pestilences,  crimes  and  all  the  tragedies  of 
life.  He  may  still  insist  that  these  are  "good"  but  it  is  quite  ob- 
vious that  in  so  doing  he  has  robbed  the  term  of  all  its  meaning. 
When  everything  is  good  there  is  nothing  that  is  really  good. 
Idealism,  in  its  endeavor  to  eliminate  evil  from  reality,  has 
also  vanquished  the  good,  the  very  thing  which  it  wished  to 
preserve.  The  same  dialectic  holds  when  we  try  to  reduce 
reality  to  any  single  category,  whether  it  be  that  of  morality, 
beauty,  reason,  will  or  what  not.  The  very  meaning  which 
you  wish  to  preserve  loses  all  content  in  the  process.  The 
Idealists,  like  Spinoza,  in  their  endeavor  to  view  things  sub 
specie  aeternitatis  had  lost  sight  of  any  distinction  between 
the  good  and  the  bad,  the  moral  and  the  immoral.  What  pro- 
gram cannot  be  justified  from  the  standpoint  of  eternity! 
You  can  justify  anything,  no  matter  how  vicious  it  may  be  in 

1.  Dewey:     German   Philosophy   and   Politics,   Lecture   III. 

2.  Cf.  Perry:     Present  Conflict  of  Ideals,  Ch.  XVIII. 


Historical  Background  7 

its  content,  when  you  once  take  this  standpoint.  Such  a 
philosophy  has  no  working  criterion  for  distinguishing  the 
good  and  the  bad  and  it  was  for  this  that  the  pragmatist  called 
the  idealist  to  account. 

The  same  difficulty  arises  when  we  come  to  account  for 
the  distinction  between  truth  and  error.  "It  was  in  defense 
of  social  order  and  values  that  Plato — not  Moses,  nor  Par- 
menides — fixed  'real  species'  with  a  fixity  that  has  held  for 
twenty-three  centuries."1  In  order  to  combat  successfully  the 
"vicious  relativism"  of  the  Sophists  as  expressed  in  the 
Protagorean  doctrine  that  "Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things," 
he  had  to  find  some  common  stuff  out  of  which  knowledge  is 
made.  This  he  found  in  his  metaphysical  Idea,  the  universal, 
the  pattern  from  which  particulars  are  drawn.  In  order  to 
relieve  us  from  the  skepticism  of  the  homo  mensura  doctrine, 
he  established  truth  on  such  a  firm  basis  that  it  became  im- 
possible for  human  beings  ever  to  be  in  error.2  In  this  re- 
spect absolute  idealism  is  quite  on  a  plane  with  the  old  Pla- 
tonic idealism  (now  realism)  in  that  endeavoring  to  save 
truth  from  a  Berkeleyan  subjectivism — equally  as  mischievous 
as  the  old  Protagorean  relativism — it,  too,  has  not  only  failed 
to  find  a  working  criterion  for  truth  but  has  made  it  equally 
as  impossible  for  such  a  thing  as  error  ever  to  take  place.  This 
we  shall  see  from  the  following  discussion  of  Prof.  Bosanquet. 

Bosanquet  defines  judgment  as  the  "reference  of  an  ideal 
content  to  reality."3  In  this  statement  the  subject  of  the  judg- 
ment is  always  reality  while  the  predicate  is  composed  of  the 
"ideal  content"  which  is  attributed  to  it.  Reality  itself  fur- 
nishes us  the  data  while  the  meaning  is  found  in  the  ideal 
content  which  is  predicated  of  it.  This  initial  chasm  between 
reality  as  represented  in  the  subject  and  an  ideal  content  as 
represented  by  the  predicate  is  going  to  furnish  us  with  a  num- 
ber of  neat  difficulties.  It  is  quite  desirable  that  we  be  able  to 
know  reality,  otherwise  our  knowledge  would  be  illusory.  The 
subject  of  any  judgment  must  be  reality  itself  but  that  reality, 
from  Bosanquet's  point  of  view,  exists  independently  of  the 
judgment  itself.  Our  ideas  must  reproduce  a  reality  which  ex- 
ists apart  from  the  judging  process.  But  if  we  are  to  know 

1.  A.  W.  Moore:    Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics,  p.  35. 

2.  Ibid,    Ch.    IIL 

3.  Bosanquet :     Logic,    Vol.   II.    p.    1. 


8  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

reality  we  must  do  so  by  our  judgments  about  it.  In  every 
judgment,  however,  the  actual  subject  is  gained  through  per- 
ception and  is  only  an  idea  of  reality.  Thus  when  I  judge  that 
"the  type  is  large"  it  is  not  the  type  itself  that  appears  in  the 
judgment  but  the  idea  of  the  type.  Consequently  the  judgment 
is  not  of  reality  but  only  relates  two  ideas  to  one  another  and 
reality  itself  is  not  known  in  the  judgment.  It  is  not  reality 
itself  of  which  an  idea  is  predicated  but  only  an  idea  of  reality.1 

Granted,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  reality  does  ap- 
pear in  the  subject  of  a  judgment,  the  question  then  arises 
as  to  the  relationship  between  the  part  which  appears  and  the 
whole  of  reality.  Each  judgment  is  fragmentary  for  in  each 
judgment  only  a  part  of  reality  is  given.  From  these  partial 
bits  of  reality  how  are  we  to  construct  the  whole,  the  complete 
and  finished  system  of  which  Bosanquet  conceives?  Our  judg- 
ments get  meaning  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  referred  to  the 
whole  of  reality  but  how  are  we  to  know  the  nature  of  the 
whole?  It  can  never  be  given  in  judgment  itself  for  then  our 
subject  and  predicate  would  merge  into  one;  the  ideal  and  the 
real  would  coincide  and  we  should  have  no  judgment  at  all. 
We  should  have  only  a  bare  identity.  The  Absolute  alone — 
for  which  we  are  thankful — is  capable  of  such  judgments. 
Such  a  judgment  would  be  as  meaningless  and  blank  as  Schel- 
ling's  Absolute  which  Hegel  characterized  as  a  "universal 
night  in  which  all  cows  are  black." 

Bosanquet  sees  the  difficulty  in  setting  up  a  reality  with 
which  thought  must  correspond  and  which  is  independent  of 
judgment.  Consequently  he  brings  reality  back  into  ithe 
judgment  in  order  that  it  may  be  known.  The  following  pas- 
sage shows  that  he  is  conscious  of  the  dilemma  in  which  he  is 
placed  and  his  attempt  to  wrestle  with  it. 

"The  Reality  to  which  we  ascribe  the  predicate  is  un- 
doubtedly self-existent ;  it  is  not  merely  in  my  mind  or  in  my 
act  of  judgment;  if  it  were,  the  judgment  would  only  be  a 

game  with  my  ideas Still  the  reality  which  attracts  my 

concentrated  attention  is  also  within  my  act  of  judgment; 
it  is  not  even  the  whole  of  reality  present  to  my  perception ; 
still  less  of  course  the  whole  self -existent  Reality  which  I  dimly 


Cf.    Helen    B.    Thompson:     Bosanquet's   Theory   of   Judgment    in    Studies    in    Logical 
Theory,  pp.  86-96. 


Historical  Background  9 

presuppose This  Reality  is  in  my  judgment;  it  is  the 

point  at  which  the  actual  world  impinges  upon  my  conscious- 
ness as  real,  and  it  is  only  by  judging  with  reference  to  this 
point  that  I  can  refer  the  ideal  content  before  my  mind  to 
the  whole  of  reality  which  I  at  once  believe  to  exist,  and  am 
attempting  to  construct.  The  Subject  is  both  in  and  out  of 
the  Judgment,  as  Reality  is  both  in  and  out  of  my  conscious- 
ness."1 

Obviously  to  say  that  the  subject  is  both  in  and  out  of  the 
judgment  does  not  solve  the  difficulty;  it  recognizes  it  but 
like  most  of  these  "both-and"  relations,  which  start  with  a 
fundamental  dualism,  is  quite  unintelligible. 

The  antithesis  between  thought  and  reality  leads  Bosan- 
quet  into  the  following  dilemma:  reality  must  be  outside  of 
the  judgment,  otherwise  we  should  know  only  our  ideas;  but 
if  it  is,  we  can  never  know  it.  It  must,  therefore,  be  inside  of 
the  judgment  for  us  to  know  it  but  in  so  placing  it,  we  have 
only  a  knowledge  of  our  ideas.  Therefore,  it  must  be  "both  in 
and  out,"  whatever  that  may  mean. 

We  find  the  same  sort  of  difficulties  in  the  ideal  world 
as  were  noted  in  the  real.  An  idea  is  a  meaning  and  as  such 
is  applicable  to  a  number  of  particulars  but  an  idea  as  image, 
as  psychical  content  is  particular.  How  the  particular  image 
is  related  to  the  universal  meaning  is  a  problem  similar  to 
that  of  how  the  subject  is  related  to  reality.2  As  meaning 
an  idea  must  refer  to  a  reality  beyond  itself  but  how  this  is 
to  be  done,  we  have  already  seen  Bosanquet  is  somewhat  em- 
barrassed in  accounting  for.  The  situation  is  very  well  stated 
by  Dr.  Thompson  in  the  following  words : 

"If  the  predicate  is  to  be  affirmed  of  reality  (and  if  it  be3 
not,  it  has  no  logical  value),  then  it  must,  when  affirmed,  be 
in  some  sense  an  accurate  representation  of  reality.  But  the 
predicate  is  an  idea,  and,  moreover,  an  idea  which  is,  both  in 
its  existence  and  meaning  palpably  the  outcome  of  transforma- 
tions wrought  upon  given  sensory  contents  by  the  individual 
consciousness.  Since  the  one  point  of  contact  with  reality  is 
a  sensory  experience,  the  more  simple  sensory  experiences  are 
reacted  upon  and  worked  over,  the  farther  they  recede  from 
reality.  The  idea  seems,  therefore,  in  its  very  essence,  a  thing 
which  never  can  be  affirmed  of  reality.  As  image  it  is  itself  a 

1.  Logic,  Vol.  I,  pp.  113-14   (i  Ed.)   quoted   from  Dr.  Thompson. 

2.  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  pp.  96-106. 

3.  Ibid.  pp.  101-02. 


10  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

reality,  but  not  affirmed;  as  meaning  it  is  the  reality  (the 
image)  manipulated  for  individual  ends.  Why  suppose  that  by 
distorting  reality  we  get  it  in  shape  to  affirm  of  reality? 
Moreover,  the  farther  an  idea  is  removed  from  immediate  sen- 
sory experience — in  other  words,  the  more  abstract  it  becomes 
— the  less  is  the  possibility  of  affirming  of  reality.  The  final 
outcome  of  this  point  of  view,  if  we  adhere  rigorously  to  its 
logic  is  that  the  more  thinking  we  do,  the  less  we  know  about 
the  real  world." 

The  outcome  of  Bosanquet's  position  is  that  we  are  un- 
able to  know  reality.  Neither  our  sense  data  nor  our  world 
of  meanings  has  any  reference  to  the  real  world.  The  data 
are  always  the  representation  of  the  world  as  it  appears  to  us 
as  individuals  while  the  objective  world  of  meanings  to  which 
our  ideas  have  reference,  are  powerless  to  go  beyond  them- 
selves so  as  to  reach  reality ;  they  prove  only  the  convention- 
alized constructs  of  human  beings.  Neither  in  subject  nor  in 
predicate  is  reality  anywhere  known  and  knowledge  turns  out 
to  be  exactly  what  Bosanquet  asserted  that  it  was  not,  viz.,  a 
relation  between  ideas.  The  reality  that  those  ideas  are  sup- 
posed to  represent  is  never  given  so  that  it  is  impossible  to 
know  when  our  ideas  are  a  true  or  a  false  representation  of  the 
real  world.  How  are  we  to  know  when  our  ideas  do  correspond 
to  reality  when  we  can  never  know  the  nature  of  reality  ? 

When  Bosanquet  comes  to  the  discussion  of  inference  the 
gap  between  the  objective  world  of  meanings  and  reality  seems 
to  have  been  mysteriously  bridged  and  so  well  has  the  bridge 
been  constructed  that  it  becomes  quite  impossible  for  the 
traveler  ever  to  fall  off  into  the  depths  of  error.  Inference 
differs  from  judgment  in  that  it  is  a  mediate  reference  of  an 
ideal  content  to  reality,1  i.  e.  the  reference  is  made  through  a 
universal.  We  have  already  noted  that  in  judgment  the  idea 
has  no  way  of  referring  to  reality,  but  in  inference  it  is  reality 
itself  that  is  working  through  us ;  the  idea  is  the  universal  and 
the  universal  is  the  reality  that  is  operating  within  us.  If  you 
make  the  judgment  that  "the  man  is  stupid"  and  somebody 
asks  you  for  evidence,  you  immediately  give  reasons  such  as 
that  he  works  diligently  but  never  seems  to  know  anything; 
he  talks  incessantly  but  never  has  anything  to  say  and  that 


1.     Logic,   Vol.  II,   Ch.   I,  pp.    1-4. 


Historical  Background  11 

it  seems  to  be  the  general  opinion  among  those  who  know  him, 
etc.  In  these  cases  the  meanings  operate  within  us  as  infer- 
ences from  the  first  judgment.  Just  why  these  particular 
ideas  should  happen  to  come  in  substantiation  of  the  meaning 
of  "stupid"  in  preference  to  any  number  of  others  that  might 
occur,  this  theory  of  inference  is  unable  to  account  for. 
Given  a  universal  in  judgment  and  the  other  universals 
simply  come  through  inference.  How  can  they  be  false  for  in 
each  case  it  is  a  fragment  of  reality  that  is  working  within 
us.  Why  should  Reality,  the  Whole,  the  Absolute  ever  con- 
descend to  send  even  a  most  infinitesimal  part  of  himself 
through  me,  a  poor,  finite  being?  What  could  possibly  be 
the  motive  on  the  part  of  the  Absolute  for  such  a  procedure  as 
this?  He  must  indeed  be  a  very  gracious  Absolute  that  he 
should  stoop  to  humble  himself  in  this  manner. 

Each  universal  is  a  bit  of  reality  and  granted  that  these 
universals  do  operate  within  us  as  Bosanquet  claims  they  do, 
then  we  have  immediately  precluded  the  possibility  for  error. 
If  it  is  reality  itself  that  is  working  through  us,  how  would  it 
be  possible  to  err?  If  the  universals  are  operating  effectively, 
reality  must  be  known  as  it  actually  is  and  there  is  no  room 
for  error.  Error  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  means  of  a  false 
universal,  but  when  it  is  reality  that  is  at  work  within  us, 
how  could  such  a  thing  be  possible?  A  false  universal  is  a 
self-destructive  term;  it  would  be  an  unreal  real.  Granted, 
however,  that  there  are  such,  when  should  we  know  when  we 
had  capturd  a  true  or  a  false  universal?  The  argument  re- 
duces itself  to  the  following  dilemma :  We  must  either  admit 
that  the  universals  are  operating  within  us  or  that  they  are 
not  so  doing;  if  we  admit  that  they  are,  then  does  it  become 
impossible  ever  to  be  in  error;  if  we  take  the  other  horn  of 
the  dilemma  and  maintain  that  the  universals  do  not  operate 
within  us,  then  the  whole  theory  is  false  for  this  is  the  central 
contention  of  the  position.  Even  though  there  could  be  such 
a  thing  as  a  false  universal,  we  could  not  be  mistaken  in  our 
inference  for  it  would  have  to  operate  as  such  through  us. 

In  attempting  to  bridge  the  gap  between  the  ideal  and  the 
real,  which  Bosanquet's  conception  of  judgment  carries  with 
it,  he  has  identified  the  two  in  inference,  only  at  the  expense 


12  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

of  error.  He  is  now  in  just  the  opposite  position  from  that 
in  which  the  account  of  judgment  left  him.  There  it  was  im- 
possible to  know  the  real  world  but  now  it  is  equally  as  im- 
possible ever  to  be  mistaken  in  regard  to  our  inferences  about 
it.  In  judgment  we  are  living  in  a  world  all  of  which  is  an 
illusion;  in  inference  we  are  dwelling  in  a  world  where  all 
things  are  true.  Thus  if  we  stick  to  the  system,  the  universal 
of  the  absolute  idealist  performs  the  same  function  as  the  old 
Platonic  Idea.  It  establishes  truth  so  firmly  that  it  makes  it 
quite  impossible  ever  to  account  for  error.  The  problem  is 
the  reverse  from  the  one  with  which  we  set  out.1  Then  there 
seemed  to  be  no  truth  for  all  was  subject  to  illusion  and  mere 
appearance,  but  now  all  is  truth  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
error. 

Experience  gets  meaning  for  the  idealist  in  so  far  as  it 
is  referred  to  the  Whole.  He  does  attempt  to  account  for 
error  by  the  partialness  of  judgment,  but  obviously,  since  all 
judgments  are  necessarily  partial,  truth  is  on  the  same  plane 
with  error.  The  only  difference  between  truth  and  error  is 
one  of  degrees.  In  so  far  as  our  judgments  approximate  the 
Whole  of  Reality,  they  become  true  and  are  false  in  proportion 
as  they  fail  to  relate  themselves  to  the  whole  of  experience. 
Since  the  Absolute  contains  all  experience,  He  alone  is  capable 
of  knowing  The  Truth.  All  judgments  are  necessarily  partial — 
with  the  exception  of  those  of  the  Absolute,  which  are  not  judg- 
ments at  all — but  some  are  less  partial  than  others. 

We  thus  have  degrees  of  partialness  so  that  those  judg- 
ments that  are  more  partial  contain  a  greater  amount  of  error 
than  those  which  are  less  so.  This  works  very  nicely  until 
we  begin  to  apply  it,  but  how  are  we  to  know  to  what  extent 
our  judgments  are  partial  when  we  have  no  way  of  knowing 
the  whole?  With  this  conception  of  truth,  how  would  you  go 
about  it  to  determine  the  truth  or  falsity  of  a  judgment?  You 
are  hungry  and  judge  that  the  food  which  you  see  will  satisfy 
your  hunger,  and  yet  you  have  no  way  of  estimating  the  truth 
of  your  judgment  only  as  you  refer  it  to  the  universe-at-large. 
Absolute  Truth  is  indeed  gratifying  but  as  a  hungry  individual 
you  might  starve  during  the  complex  process  of  "otheration." 


1.     Cf.  Moore:    Pragmatism  and  its  Critics,  Ch.  III. 


Historical  Background  13 

How  much  help  would  you  receive  on  a  problem  should  you  go 
to  Mr.  Joachim  and  he  should  speak  thus  with  you: 

"Truth,  we  said,  was  the  systematic  coherence  which1 
characterized  a  significant  whole.  And  we  proceeded  to  iden- 
tify a  significant  whole  with  'an  organized  individual  exper- 
ience, self-fulfilling  and  self -fulfilled/  Now  there  can  be  one 
and  only  one  such  experience:  or  only  one  significant  whole, 
the  significance  of  which  is  self-contained  in  the  sense  re- 
quired. For  it  is  absolute  self -fulfillment,  absolutely  self-con- 
tained  significance,  that  is  postulated;  and  nothing  short  of 
absolute  individuality — nothing  short  of  the  completely  whole 
experience — can  satisfy  this  postulate.  And  human  knowledge 
— not  merely  my  knowledge  or  yours,  but  the  best  and  fullest 
knowledge  in  the  world  at  any  stage  of  its  development — is 
clearly  not  a  significant  whole  in  this  ideally  complete  sense. 
Hence,  the  truth,  which  our  sketch  described,  is — from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  human  intelligence — an  Ideal,  and  an 
Ideal  which  can  never  as  such,  or  in  its  completeness,  be  actual 
as  human  experience.'* 

If  the  idealist's  account  of  truth  is  true,  then  his  own 
statement  is  not  the  correct  one  for  it  can  only  be  partially  true. 
Since  all  judgments  are  partial,  his  conception  of  truth  is  not 
quite  true.2  It  is  a  judgment  about  truth  and  as  such  is  partial 
and  hence  not  exactly  true.  Whether  it  be  Prof.  Royce's 
"purposive  Absolute"  or  Mr.  Joachim's  "systematic  coherence 
of  a  significant  whole"  or  Mr.  Bradley's  "whole  of  sentience," 
the  same  criticism  applies.  Like  Kant  and  Spencer,  they  seem 
to  know  more  about  the  "unknowable" — the  Absolute  in  this 
case — than  their  own  partial  judgments  would  warrant. 

A  philosophy  which  finds  it  possible  to  convert  deliberately 
evil  into  good,  which  makes  the  ultimate  character  of  things  so 
perfect  that  there  is  no  chance  for  error  and  which  is  so  in- 
terested in  the  Absolute  that  it  entirely  forgets  humanity,  is 
radically  defective  for  the  kind  of  a  world  in  which  we  as 
human  beings  have  elected  to  dwell.  It  is  to  remedy  some 
of  these  defects  that  the  pragmatist  comes  to  the  rescue.3  As 
to  how  well  he  succeeds  we  shall  see  later  but  we  are  here 
concerned  in  noting  that  it  is  to  combat  the  absolutistic  ex- 
tremes into  which  idealism  had  led  that  the  pragmatist  first 


1.  Nature  of  Truth,  pp.  78,  79. 

2.  Cf.  Bertrand  Russell:    Philosophical  Essays,  pp.  153,  64. 

3.  Cf .  Moore :     Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics,  Ch.  IV. 


14  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

appears  in  the  scenes.  Pragmatism  then,  arose  as  a  revolt 
against  absolutism.  As  the  leader  of  such  a  revolt,  it  aims  to 
uphold  the  counter  thesis  of  the  relativity  of  truth.  It  is  with 
this  position  that  pragmatism  starts.  It  has  come  to  stand  for 
very  much  more  than  this  but  it  is  quite  possible  to  show  that 
its  later  developments  have  come  as  the  result  of  defending 
its  initial  thesis.  Instrumentalism  will  be  placed  in  this  con- 
nection at  another  point  in  the  discussion.  The  important 
point  for  us  to  hold  in  mind  is  that  pragmatism  developed  as 
a  reaction  against  absolutism.  Absolutism  in  politics  gave 
way  long  before  absolutism  in  thought  and  it  will  not  be  until 
the  latter  too,  has  given  way,  that  the  world  will  be  made  safe 
for  democracy.  Pragmatism  in  this  sense  is  the  champion  of 
democracy.  It  gets  its  first  meaning  in  the  absolutistic  con- 
troversy. 

The  pragmatist  has  the  realist's  most  hearty  co-operation 
— even  though  the  latter  does  have  room  for  absolute  truths. 
,  For  him  there  are  many  truths  and  not  one  Truth — in  his  en- 
deavor to  make  the  idealist  live  in  a  world  very  different  in 
character  from  the  one  he  has  pictured  and  in  which  he  would 
so  much  like  to  dwell.  It  is  not  the  absolutistic  character  of 
idealism  in  which  the  realist  is  primarily  interested.  This 
does  not  seem  nearly  so  repugnant  to  him  as  the  very  ideal 
character  itself.  Realism  protests  against  the  subjectivistic 
extremes  into  which  idealism  had  fallen,  and  to  understand 
its  polemic,  we  shall  have  to  go  back  to  Bishop  Berkeley's 
teachings. 

The  key  to  Berkeley's  position  is  that  things  have  their 
being  in  so  far  as  they  are  perceived.  Their  esse  is  their 
percepi.  This  he  established  by  means  of  a  syllogism  which 
may  be  stated  somewhat  as  follows:  There  can  be  no  being 
apart  from  quality;  there  can  be  no  quality  apart  from  the 
mind ;  therefore,  there  can  be  no  being  apart  from  the  mind. 
If  you  were  to  abstract  all  the  qualities  from  an  object,  you 
would  get  pure  being,  but  pure  being  would  be  nothing.  It  is 
probably  in  this  sense  that  Hegel  thinks  of  "being"  and  "noth- 
ing" as  synonymous.  But  if  we  are  to  have  a  being  about 
which  you  may  speak  intelligently  it  must  possess  some  quali- 
ties. That  there  can  be  no  qualities  apart  from  the  mind,  is 


Historical  Background  15 

the  old  story  as  to  whether  there  would  be  sound  if  there  were 
no  ear  to  hear  it,  color  if  there  were  no  eye  to  see  it,  etc.  From 
this,  the  argument  runs,  it  would  follow  that  the  ultimate  char- 
acter of  things  must  be  mental  or  ideal.  The  realist  insists 
that  there  is  a  real  world  which  exists  quite  independently  of 
its  being  perceived  and  furthermore,  that  its  character  is  not 
mental. 

To  prove  his  position  the  realist  has  found  it  necessary 
to  point  out  the  fallacies  in  the  proofs  of  idealism  and  to  erect 
a  logical  structure  in  defense  of  his  own  thesis  of  independ- 
ence. Thus  Mr.  Russell  shows  how  we  must  distinguish  be- 
tween the  psychical  process  by  means  of  which  a  thing  is 
known  and  the  thing  known.1  The  act  of  knowledge  is  mental 
but  this  is  no  reason  why  we  should  say  that  the  thing  known 
is  of  that  character.  Dr.  Montague  finds  it  his  duty  to  refute 
Berkeleyan  idealism  and  does  so  by  pointing  out  the  fallacy 
of  "psychophysical  metonymy"2  involved  in  the  argument.  He 
states  the  argument  in  the  following  syllogism  in  Barbara: 
"Ideas  are  incapable  of  existing  apart  from  a  mind.  Physical 
objects  in  so  far  as  they  are  perceived  or  knoivn  at  all  are  cer- 
tainly 'ideas.'  All  physical  objects  are,  therefore,  incapable 
of  existing  apart  from  a  mind."3  He  then  points  out  the  same 
fallacy  as  noted  above  by  Mr.  Russell,  only  the  latter  is  not 
so  skillful  in  naming  it.  It  is  due  to  the  ambiguity  of  the  word 
"idea"  which  is  used  in  the  major  premise  to  denote  "the  act 
or  process  of  perceiving,  while  in  the  minor  premise  it  is  used 
to  denote  the  object  of  that  act,  i.  e.,  the  thing  or  content  that 
is  perceived."  This  "verbal  fallacy  of  psychophysical 
metonymy"  is  only  a  new  way  of  saying  the  old  formal  fallacy 
of  "ambiguous  middle." 

Berkeley's  refutation  of  Locke's  representative  theory 
of  knowledge  is  accepted  by  the  realist  as  establishing  "epis- 
temological  monism."  The  former  argued  that  if  our  ideas 
are  like  reality,  the  representation  is  redundant  and  that  if 
they  are  not  like  reality,  we  can  have  no  knowledge ;  in  either 
case  the  representation  is  useless.  With  the  epistemological 
monism  of  the  idealist,  the  realist  agrees  but  that  the  knowl- 


1.  Cf.  Russell:    Problems  of  Philosophy.  Ch.  IV. 

2.  Cf.  The  New  Realism,  p.  256  ff. 

3.  Ibid,  p.  258. 


16  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

edge  relation  is  one  between  the  mind  and  its  ideas,  he  cannot 
accept.  He  sees  another  alternative  which  is  that  of  having  the 
objects  act  directly  upon  us  so  that  knowing  becomes  a  "mind- 
object"  rather  than  a  "mind-idea"  relation.1  We  do  not  have 
knowledge  of  "ideas"  but  knowledge  of  "objects." 

Prof.  Perry  attacks  the  idealist  by  showing  that  he  has 
argued  from  the  standpoint  of  the  "ego-centric  predicament." 
This  fallacy  consists  in  arguing  from  the  fact  that  whenever 
anything  is  discovered,  it  is  always  found  in  the  knowledge 
relation  to  the  assumption  that  knowing  is  a  necessary  condi- 
tion for  being.  It  involves  either  the  "redundant  inference 
that  all  known  things  are  known,  or  the  false  inference  that 
all  things  are  known."2  It  is  of  course  impossible  to  examine 
the  character  of  things  when  not  known  but  from  this  it  can- 
not be  argued  that  knowing  is  in  any  way  related  to  being. 
This  is  exactly  the  procedure  of  the  argument  from  the  ego- 
centric predicament.  It  assumes  that  because  knowledge  is 
necessary  to  the  discovery  of  an  object,  it  is  therefore  con- 
stitutive of  that  object.  The  realist  admits  the  difficulty  in 
the  method  of  procedure  in  being  unable  to  eliminate  the 
knower  from  an  act  of  knowledge,  as  would  obviously  be 
necessary  in  showing  the  nature  of  things  when  not  known, 
but  fails  to  see,  how  because  of  this  predicament,  one  is  able 
to  argue  that  knowing  is  essential  to  being. 

This  predicament  together  with  the  fallacy  of  "initial 
predication,"  constitute  the  historic  proofs  for  idealism.3 
This  latter  fallacy  consists  in  defining  a  thing  in  terms  of 
the  initial  relationship  with  which  one  happens  to  meet  it. 
The  relationship  may  be  entirely  accidental  and  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  essence  of  the  entity  so  defined  but  because  one 
happens  to  meet  with  it  in  this  relation,  he  proceeds  to  define 
the  object  accordingly.  It  is  by  means  of  such  a  definition  that 
idealism  reduces  the  character  of  things  to  ideas,  finding  them 
to  be  of  this  nature  when  they  are  known.  (The  argument  is 
of  course  based  upon  an  .epistemological  monism,  which  holds 
that  we  have  knowledge  only  of  our  ideas,  an  epistemological 
monism  which,  as  already  noted,  the  realist  rejects.)  But 


1.  Cf.  Perry:     Present  Philosophical   Tendencies,  pp.    119-132. 

2.  The  New  Realism,  pp.   11,   12. 

3.  Cf.   Ibid,   pp.    128-32. 


Historical  Background  17 

even  if  the  theory  be  true,  the  realist  contends  that  we  have 
no  right  to  frame  our  definition  according  to  it  because  it  may 
be  only  an  accidental  relation. 

Closely  connected  with  this  fallacy  is  that  of  "exclusive 
particularity,"1  which  fails  to  recognize  that  a  term  may  stand 
in  more  than  one  relation  and  still  be  the  same  term.  Thus  a 
man  may  be  a  member  of  a  church,  a  business  concern,  a  uni- 
versity or  any  number  of  social  groups  and  still  be  the  same 
man.*  To  define  him  in  terms  of  the  church,  which  happens 
to  be  the  first  relation  in  which  we  find  him  in  this  case,  is 
obviously  misleading;  but  this  is  exactly  what  the  idealist 
does  when  he  makes  being  dependent  upon  knowledge.  It  is  as 
absurd  as  it  would  be  to  define  a  gambler  as  one  who  goes  to 
church  because  you  might  happen  to  meet  him  in  this  con- 
nection for  the  first  time.  Just  how  the  realist  knows  when 
he  has  the  essential  attributes  of  an  entity,  is  rather  difficult  to 
say,  but  we  shall  return  to  this  difficulty  at  another  point. 

Realism  has  tried  to  force  the  idealist  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  real  world  which  exists  quite  independent- 
ly of  its  being  known.  Idealism  bravely  faced  the  realist 
and  tried  to  make  him  see  that  it  is  not  subjective  in  character 
any  longer  but  that  it  had  become  objective,  just  as  objective 
in  fact  as  his  own  real  world.  But  the  hard-hearted  realist 
was  not  satisfied  with  this  concession  on  the  part  of  the  idealist 
and  even  refused  to  believe  him,  holding  that  in  so  far  as 
idealism  had  become  objective,  it  had  become  realistic,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  idealism  ever  to  become  really  objective2 
and  that  it  is  inherently  subjectivistic.  In  other  words,  "ob- 
jective idealism"  is  a  self -destructive  term,  as  meaningless  as 
a  "democratic  military  discipline,"  or  a  Kaiser  to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy. 

Not  satisfied  with  this,  the  realist  also  found  the  fact 
that  the  ultimate  character  of  things  is  mental,  very  repulsive 
to  him  and  again  summoned  the  idealist  into  court.  He  not 
only  challenged  the  position  that  things  have  no  being  apart 


1.  Cf.    The    New    Realism,    p.    14. 

2.  Cf.  Perry:     Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  p.   162  f. 

*The  question  may  well  be  raised  as  to  what  extent  the  man  is  the  same  man  when  h« 
comes  into  relationship  with  these  different  social  groups.  This  offers  a  good  ex- 
ample of  how  impossible  it  is  to  get  any  meaning  into  a  bare,  metaphysical  indi- 
vidual. See  James's  chapter  on  The  Self. 


18  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

from  their  being  known  but  also  the  phenomenalistic  position 
that  knowledge  is  constitutive  of  its  object.  Things  are  dif- 
ferent when  in  the  knowledge  relation  than  they  really  are, 
i.  e.,  when  apart  from  that  relation.  Knowledge  is  either 
necessary  for  the  being  of  things  or  else  it  modifies  their 
character  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  know 
them  as  they  really  are,  the  Kantian  position.  Idealism  thus 
found  itself  caught  between  the  scylla  of  Berkeleyan  subjec- 
tivism on  the  one  hand  and  the  charybdis  of  Kantian  phenom- 
enalism on  the  other.  It  is  safely  to  guide  the  philosophical 
ship  between  these  dangerous  cliifs  that  the  realist  appears 
as  the  pilot  who  knows  the  waters.  He  is  able  to  know  reality 
and  furthermore  knows  it  as  something  other  than  mental. 

The  cardinal  thesis  for  realism  then  is  that  of  independ- 
ence. It  is  primarily  a  protest  against  Berkeleyan  idealism 
but  there  is  also  another  motif  in  realism,  which  although  a 
reaction  against  subjectivism,  cannot  be  attributed  as  hailing 
from  a  special  antipathy  for  the  Bishop.  This  motif  arises 
as  a  repugnance  on  the  part  of  some  "tough-minded"  in- 
dividuals to  be  asked  to  think  in  terms  of  selves  rather  than 
things  as  absolute  idealism  would  have  us  do.  We  have  noted 
how  the  romanticist  attempted  to  reduce  the  world  to  one  cate- 
gory, that  category  always  standing  for  some  attribute  of 
.self  which  seemed  most  pleasing  to  the  philosopher  who  was  in 
quest  of  the  Absolute.  The  result  is  that  before  very  long  the 
romanticist  had  lost  sight  of  the  external  world  and  had  swal- 
lowed it  up  in  his  self,  or  if  he  were  not  quite  capable  of  con- 
taining it  all,  the  Absolute  was  so  that  it  made  no  difference 
as  to  the  virtual  extinction  of  the  external  world.  The  realist 
refuses  to  have  the  real  world  swallowed  up  in  any  way, 
whether  it  be  by  a  fragmentary  self  like  his  own  or  that  of 
the  Absolute.  With  a  somewhat  different  motif,  absolute 
idealism  had  landed  us  in  a  subjective  world  which  is  not 
much  of  an  improvement  over  the  Berkeleyan  subjectivism. 
The  latter  had  brought  us  there  through  epistemology,  while 
the  absolutist  was  asking  us  to  dwell  there  for  sentimental 
reasons.  The  realist,  who  believes  in  facing  facts,  revolted 
against  this  sentimentalism  of  the  romanticist  and  sought  a 
way  out  of  the  epistemological  difficulty  so  that  we  might 
again  live  in  a  real  world,  one  which  is  in  no  way  influenced 


Historical  Background  19 

by  what  any  particular  individual  happens  to  think  about  it.1 
Just  as  history  has  had  a  tendency  to  move  through  re- 
actions, so  thought  has  had  a  tendency  to  move  from  pole  to 
pole.  Indeed  it  is  this  tendency  on  the  part  of  thought  so  to 
move  that  has  no  doubt  done  much  in  shaping  history's  course, 
for  the  two  cannot  be  separated  from  each  other.  The  ex- 
cesses into  which  idealism  had  fallen  caused  reactions  against 
it,  both  upon  its  absolutistic  and  its  idealistic  sides.  The 
Hegelian  dialectic  has  evidently  been  at  work,  for  poor  ideal- 
ism, attacked  for  its  absolutistic  platform  by  the  pragmatist 
and  its  idealistic  dogma  by  the  realist,  has  now  no  place  to 
lay  its  head  in  comfort,  except  as  it  subside  in  peace  and  be 
content  to  breathe  no  more.  Yet,  because  of  its  religious  im- 
plications, it  will  probably  continue  to  find  many  an  ardent 
champion  and  defender. 

Idealism  must  have  been  conscious  of  its  own  defects  as 
a  method  of  getting  around  in  the  world,  for  the  Hegelian 
dialectic  plainly  shows  us  that  we  cannot  "ride  any  horse  too 
far,"  that,  if  we  do,  he  soon  becomes  tired  and  ceases  to  be 
himself  by  generating  his  own  opposite.  It  evidently  did 
not  profit  by  the  teachings  of  its  own  logic  but  continued  its 
search  for  The  Absolute  so  that  humanity  was  quite  forgot- 
ten in  the  quest.  Although  pragmatism  arose  as  a  revolt 
against  absolutism,  it  has  not  followed  the  course  of  the 
Hegelian  logic — perhaps  because  of  its  humanistic  motif — 
by  setting  up  its  own  absolute.  The  rather  has  it  learned  the 
truth  of  the  very  simple  but  equally  profound  maxim  of 
Aristotle's  that  "Virtue  is  a  mean  between  extremes."  It  thus 
hopes  to  prevent  the  world's  having  to  progress  through  the 
march  of  revolutions  followed  by  counter-revolutions.  It 
hopes  to  put  a  stop  to  the  operation  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic  in 
society.  It  aims  to  show  that  progress  among  a  people  may 
come  through  the  opposition  of  particulars  to  universals  rather 
than  through  that  of  universals  pitted  against  each  other. 
In  other  words,  intelligent  progress  comes  through  evolution 
and  not  by  revolution.  Science  does  not  start  with  a  conflict 
between  universals  but  from  the  conflict  of  a  particular  or 
particulars  with  a  universal.  The  former  is  Hegelian  and  is 
revolutionary ;  the  latter  is  pragmatic  and  evolutionary.  Prog- 

1.     Cf.  TTie  New  Realism,  pp.  2-11. 


20  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Kealism 

ress  is  not  progress  if  it  is  made  at  too  great  a  cost  and  if  it 
can  only  come  through  the  opposition  of  universals,  it  often 
defeats  itself,  even  though  in  the  "long  run"  the  world  may 
be  ahead.  The  only  trouble  with  the  "long  run"  is  that  we 
have  to  know  when  to  stop  running,  otherwise  we  run  into 
eternity  and  as  already  pointed  out,  that  standpoint  robs  the 
world  of  all  meaning  and  value.  If  we  run  too  far,  humanity 
will  always  be  getting  ready  for  a  better  day  but  no  genera- 
tion will  ever  be  ready  to  really  live.  This  is  the  fallacy  of 
wars  in  the  interest  of  an  abstract  humanity.  If  the  Hegelian 
dialectic  is  scientific,  wars  are  necessary  for  progress,  but 
if  the  pragmatic  method  is  scientific,  progress  is  quite  possible 
without  them.  History  has  moved  in  the  past  according  to 
this  dialectic.  It  rests  with  us  whether  it  shall  continue  so  to 
move. 

The  realist  is  quite  in  sympathy  with  the  pragmatist  in 
refusing  to  be  swallowed  up  by  The  Absolute  or  any  other 
kind  of  an  absolute  for  that  matter.  The  pragmatist  has 
thrown  absolutism  out  of  court  altogether  but  the  realist  in 
throwing  it  out  of  the  door  of  his  real  and  independent  world 
has  let  it  in  again  through  the  window  of  his  subsistential  enti- 
ties. It  does  not  come  in  as  a  Whole  but  only  piecemeal.  The 
idealist  lets  the  absolute  in  wholly,  the  realist  lets  him  in  on 
the  installment  plan  while  the  pragmatist  refuses  him  admit- 
tance at  any  point  and  even  locks  doors  and  windows  to  keep 
him  out  if  necessary.  The  pragmatist  abhors  an  absolute. 

Realism  now  stands  for  much  more  than  the  thesis  of 
independence,  i.  e.,  the  existence  of  things  apart  from  their 
being  known,  but  just  as  it  is  possible  to  show  that  instru- 
mentalism  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  thesis  of  the  relativity  of 
truth  from  the  pragmatic  point  of  view,  so  is  it  quite  possible 
to  show  that  the  later  developments  of  realism  have  come  as 
efforts  to  uphold  its  original  thesis.  The  above  discussion 
shows  that  pragmatism  and  realism  did  not  arise  in  opposi- 
tion to  one  another  but  that  they  have  both  come  as  revolts 
against  idealism,  the  pragmatist  attacking  the  absolutistic 
plank  while  the  realist  attacks  the  idealistic  plank  of  the  ideal- 
ist's program.  Since  these  two  schools  did  not  arise  in  the 
same  controversy,  they  obviously  cannot  meet  each  other  with 
the  same  weapons  that  they  have  employed  in  facing  their 


Historical  Background  21 

opponents.  Realism  gets  its  meaning  in  opposition  to  subjec- 
tivism. The  question  now  is :  Can  realism  continue  to  use  the 
same  arguments  against  pragmatism  that  it  has  used  in  com- 
bating subjective  idealism?  If  the  pragmatist  grants  the 
existence  of  a  real  world  apart  from  the  field  of  awareness, 
this  evidently  is  not  the  issue  between  pragmatism  and  real- 
ism. The  present  thesis  holds  that  the  pragmatist  does  grant 
the  existence  of  a  real  world  and  that  the  issue  between 
realism  and  pragmatism  is  that  of  meaning.  Pragmatism  and 
realism  cannot  get  on  common  ground  for  controversial  pur- 
poses until  this  issue  is  recognized.  The  realist  must  face  the 
pragmatist  on  the  issue  of  meaning.  He  must  meet  this  issue 
and  meet  it  squarely. 

The  two  following  chapters  will  be  devoted  to  a  discus- 
sion of  "meaning"  in  realism  and  pragmatism  respectively.  In 
the  last  chapter  wre  shall  give  a  critical  comparison  of  the  two 
positions  respecting  this  issue. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Position  of  Meaning  in  Realism 

We  have  seen  that  realism  arose  in  opposition  to  sub- 
jectivism, taking  as  its  counter  thesis  that  of  independence. 
The  following  is  an  attempt  to  show  how  the  logical  structure 
of  the  position  has  developed  as  an  endeavor  to  prove  the 
original  contention  and  at  the  same  time  discover  the  position 
of  meaning  in  the  system. 

Kant's  contention  that  his  predecessors,  as  well  as  con- 
temporary metaphysicians,  had  been  misled  because  they  had 
attempted  to  solve  the  problem  of  being  without  having  first 
inquired  into  the  limits  of  human  knowledge,  is  directly  chal- 
lenged by  the  neo-realists.1  In  other  words,  Kant  maintains 
that  we  have  no  right  to  talk  about  metaphysics  until  we  have 
first  examined  the  possibilities  of  knowledge,  not  as  a  psycho- 
logical process  but  as  knowledge  in  general,  knowledge  iiber- 
haupt.  Epistemology  must  always  precede  metaphysics  and 
to  attempt  to  discuss  Being  without  having  first  asked  our- 
selves as  to  what  we  can  know,  is  putting  the  cart  before  the 
horse.  To  this  the  realist  replies  that  philosophy  has  been 
vitiated  since  the  time  of  Kant  because  it  has  given  priority 
to  epistemology  and  that  it  was  not  Kant's  predecessors  who 
were  in  error  but  Kant  himself.  The  former  were  in  error, 
not  because  they  had  not  consciously  faced  Kant's  problem  but 
because  their  metaphysics  had  been  vitiated  by  epistemology. 
Wherein  they  differed  from  Kant  was  that  a  knowledge  of 
reality  is  possible  while  for  him  we  have  knowledge  only  of 
phenomena.  However  this  may  be,  whether  reality  be  know- 
able  or  unknowable,  the  conclusions  are  invalidated  for  meta- 
physics has  been  subordinated  to  epistemology.  Both  phe- 
nomenalism and  idealism  give  preference  to  epistemology  over 
metaphysics  and  to  this  the  realist  objects,  holding  that  know- 
ing has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  being,  that  things  exist 
quite  apart  from  their  being  known.  This  philosophy  endeav- 
ors to  emancipate  metaphysics  from  epistemology  which  is 
only  another  way  of  saying,  to  prove  the  independence  of 
being  over  knowing. 

1.     Cf.  The  New  Realism,  pp.  13-60. 


Meaning  in  Realism  23 

As  the  first  step  in  this  emancipation  of  metaphysics  from 
epistemology  comes  a  reformation  in  logic.  Logic  is  hence- 
forth not  to  be  conceived  of  as  having  anything  whatever  to 
do  with  thinking  but  as  something  which  is  objective  and 
entirely  independent  of  thought.1  Logic  is  just  as  objective 
as  physics  and  chemistry  or  any  other  science  for  that  matter, 
and  is  to  be  studied  empirically  in  the  same  way  as  one  would 
study  the  sciences  just  mentioned.  Just  as  mathematical 
principles  hold  regardless  of  whether  or  not  the  mind  ever 
thinks  them,  so  there  are  certain  logical  entities  which  sub- 
sist without  any  reference  to  human  purposes.  The  relations 
hold  between  these  entities  whether  known  or  unknown* 
knowing  does  not  alter  the  character  of  the  entities  or  the 
relations  which  exist  between  them  in  any  way,  shape  or  man- 
ner. Two  plus  two  equals  four  and  the  Pythagorean  proposi- 
tion in  geometry  are  true,  always  have  been  true  and  always 
will  be  true.  The  mere  discovery  of  a  truth  has  nothing  to 
do  with  its  being.  The  being  is  there  quite  independent  of 
its  being  known. 

The  idealist  is  unable  to  know  the  truth  about  any  one 
thing  because  he  cannot  know  the  whole  truth,  know  the  par- 
ticular event  in  its  relation  to  the  whole  of  reality.  So  inter- 
connected are  things  in  their  relation  to  each  other  that  it  is 
impossible  to  know  all  there  is  to  know  about  any  one  thing 
because  it  is  related  to  every  other  thing.  Consequently,  in 
order  to  know  anything,  one  must  know  everything  and  since 
he  cannot  know  everything,  he  cannot  know  anything.  For 
the  realist  who  believes  it  possible  actually  to  know  things  as 
they  are,  such  a  position  is  simply  untenable.  He  believes 
that  at  the  basis  of  this  argument  there  is  a  fallacy  so  mon- 
strous as  to  discredit  completely  any  system  which  accepts  it, 
viz.,  that  of  the  internality  of  relations.2  This  theory  holds 
that  when  two  terms  are  related,  the  terms  thus  related  are 
modified  by  virtue  of  that  relation.  It  may  be  stated  thus: 
X  R  Y.  (Let  X  and  Y  be  the  terms  to  be  related  while  R 
stands  for  the  relation  that  exists  between  them.  According 
to  this  theory  when  X  is  related  to  Y,  both  X  and  Y  become 

1.  Cf.   E.   B.  Holt:     Concept  of   Consciousness,   Ch.   I 

Russell :  Scientific  Method  in  Philosophy,  Lecture  II.  E.  G.  Spaulding ;  The  New 
Rationalism,  Chs.  XXI-XXV  inc.  W.  T.  Marvin :  The  Emancipation  of  Meta- 
physics from  epistemology  in  The  New  Realism,  pp.  51-60. 

2.  Cf.  The  New  Rationalism,  Ch.  XXVI. 


24  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

something  other  than  they  originally  were  by  the  mere  fact 
of  being  related.  Thus  X  becomes  Xl  and  Y  becomes  Yx  so 
that  it  becomes  impossible  to  know  either  X  as  X  or  Y  as  Y. 
Knowledge  itself  being  a  relation,  it  is  impossible  to  know 
things  as  they  are  because  the  mere  act  of  knowing  has  brought 
the  object  to  be  known  into  a  new  relation,  thus  altering  it 
from  what  it  was  when  an  object  to  be  known.  The  object 
as  known  and  the  object  to  be  known  are  two  quite  different 
objects  simply  by  virtue  of  the  knowing  relation  involved  in 
the  one  which  is  not  found  in  the  other. 

It  is  this  "constitutive"  theory  of  relations  that  has  given 
Mr.  Bradley  so  much  trouble.  He  argues  the  impossibility 
of  relations  because  one  can  never  reach  a  relation  that  is 
capable  of  relating.  Thus  in  order  for  R  to  relate  X  and  Y 
we  must  have  still  another  "R"  which  is  capable  of  relating 
the  relation.  After  finding  such  an  R  we  need  a  relation  to 
relate  this  relation  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.1  We  may  continue 
indefinitely  but  we  never  find  a  relation  that  really  relates. 
The  same  difficulty  appears  when  we  come  to  account  for  the 
terms  to  be  related.  If  relations  modify  their  terms,  then  we 
should  have  no  simple  terms  to  be  related  for  our  terms  would 
be  made  complex  by  means  of  their  sustaining  relations — 
granted  that  such  were  possible — so  that  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble to  distinguish  the  terms  from  the  relations. 

Nor  does  the  underlying  reality2  theory  of  relations  help 
us  any.  This  is  another  form  which  the  theory  of  internal 

XRY. 

relations  may  take.    It  may  be  stated  thus : .    (X  and 

U 

Y  being  the  terms  to  be  related  while  U  is  the  underlying 
principle  by  means  of  which  they  can  be  related.)  This  theory 
holds  that  X  can  only  act  upon  Y  through  U,  i.  e.,  by  means  of 
some  underlying  principle,  some  common  denominator  which 
is  able  to  mediate  the  relation.  But  it  is  only  by  means  of 
a  dogmatic  assumption  that  such  a  principle  is  ever  found; 
for  if  we  start  with  the  assumption  that  X  can  only  act  upon 
Y  through  U,  we  may  then  ask  as  to  the  kind  of  a  relation 
which  holds  between  U  and  the  terms  to  be  related.  This 
can  only  be  answered  by  means  of  Ult  which  in  turn  can  only 

1.  Cf.  F.  H.  Bradley:     Appearance  and  Reality,  pp.   32,  38. 

2.  Cf.     Spaulding:     The  New  Rationalism,   pp.    185-90. 


Meaning  in  Realism  25 

relate  the  X  R  Y  to  U  by  means  of  a  U2,  and  so  we  may  con- 
tinue ad  infinitum  but  never  do  we  reach  the  underlying  prin- 
ciple sought. 

To  all  this  the  realist  says  that  your  difficulties  are  due 
to  the  fact  that  you  have  started  with  a  false  theory  of  rela- 
tions. He  comes  forward  with  his  theory  of  the  externality 
of  relations,  holding  that  it  is  quite  possible  for  terms  to  be 
related  and  yet  be  independent  of  each  other.  This  principle 
may  be  formulated  as  follows:  X  [R]  Y.  (Again  X  and  Y 
are  the  terms  to  be  related  while  R  stands  for  the  relation.) 
The  brackets  indicate  that  X  and  Y  may  be  related  to  one 
another  but  that  their  characters  are  not1  changed  by  virtue 
of  that  relation.  Relations  do  not  necessarily  modify  their 
terms  but  it  is  quite  possible  for  terms  to  be  related  and  still 
be  independent  of  each  other.  Relatedness  and  independence 
are  not  incompatible  with  each  other.  Entities  may  pass  in 
and  out  of  relationship  with  one  another  without  having  their 
essential  characteristics  thereby  modified. 

To  establish  his  case,  the  realist  gives  as  evidence  for  the 
externality  of  relations  such  instances  as  that  found  in  the 
relations  between  the  terms  of  the  number  series,  any  variable 
and  the  axioms  of  geometry  and  particularly  in  the  case  of 
entities  which  are  related  as  logical  prior  and  logical  subse- 
quent.1 Thus  the  points  of  space  are  related  to  one  another, 
but  in  no  sense  can  be  said  to  be  dependent  on  one  another  in 
the  sense  of  a  causal  dependence ;  so  with  any  number  in  the 
number  series,  although  it  occupies  a  definite  and  specific  posi- 
tion in  the  serial  order,  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  dependent 
on  those  numbers  which  precede  or  follow  it.  The  relation  of 
logical  priority  is  found  when  that  which  is  logically  subse- 
quent presupposes  that  which  is  logically  prior,  but  that  which 
is  logically  prior  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  which  is 
logically  subsequent.  Thus  motion  presupposes  both  space  and 
time  but  they  do  not  necessarily  imply  it ;  biology  presupposes 
both  physics  and  chemistry  but  they  do  not  necessarily  imply 
it;  and  psychology  presupposes  biology  in  turn  but  biology 
does  not  necessarily  imply  psychology.  In  all  these  instances 
we  have  cases  of  relatedness  and  independence.  But  the  most 


1.     Cf.  The  New  Rationalism,  pp.  178-82. 
Ibid,  Ch.  XLIII,  Sect.  VIII-X. 


26  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

important  one  of  all  is  that  of  the  knowing  relation.  By  means 
of  the  externality  of  relations  it  is  possible  to  know  things  as 
they  really  are ;  it  is  possible  to  analyze  "in  situ"  without  the 
character  of  the  object  so  analyzed  being  modified.  The  know- 
ing relation  in  no  way  changes  its  object.  Entities  may  pass 
in  and  out  of  the  knowing  relation  without  having  their  essen- 
tial characteristics  altered  in  the  least.1  It  is  by  means  of  this 
principle  of  the  externality  of  relations  that  the  realist  is  able 
to  uphold  the  independence  of  knowing  and  its  object. 

The  above  mentioned  relation  of  logical  priority  is  one 
of  very  great  significance  for  the  realist  because  of  its  meta- 
physical implications.  It  is  by  means  of  this  principle  that 
he  finds  the  universe  to  be  logically  stratified.  The  entities,  or 
universals,  arrange  themselves  in  a  logical  hierarchy  accord- 
ing to  their  position  in  the  "neutral  mosaic."2  Those  relations 
which  are  most  universal  and  to  which  all  entities  conform, 
naturally  occupy  the  substrata  while  those  entities  which  do 
not  have  such  a  universal  denotation  occupy  the  pinnacle  of 
the  structure  while  between  the  two  extremes  may  be  found 
entities  which  occupy  any  number  of  intermediate  positions. 
Thus  logic  and  mathematics  occupy  the  seat  of  honor,  they 
being  most  fundamental.  Sciences  which  treat  of  space,  time, 
motion,  matter,  etc.,  come  next  in  the  series,  with  probably 
a  number  of  different  combinations  or  degrees  of  generality 
between  them.  Physics,  chemistry,  biology,  psychology,  ethics, 
politics  and  sociology  occupy  their  respective  places  in  the 
hierarchy.3  This  relation  of  logical  priority  which  determines 
the  position  of  any  science  in  the  logical  structure,  yields  a 
result  very  similar  to  Comte's  classification  of  the  sciences 
based  upon  the  degree  of  positivity,  this  in  turn  being  deter- 
mined directly  as  the  generality  and  inversely  as  the  increasing 
complexity  of  the  phenomena  with  which  the  subject-matter 
is  concerned.*  Wherein  the  realist  differs  from  the  positivist 
is  that  he  is  not  attempting  to  reduce  all  phenomena  to  mathe- 
matical principles  as  does  Comte.  Realism  admits  the  exist- 
ence of  non-natural  sciences,  confining  the  word  "natural"  to 

1.  Cf.     The  New  Rationalism,  Ch.  XLIV. 

2.  Cf.  Holt:    Concept  of  Consciousness,  Ch.   VIII. 

3.  Prof.    Spaulding    names    the    sciences    in    the    following    order:      Logic,    Geometry, 
Science  of  time,  Kinematics,  Dynamics,  Pure  Mechanics,  Applied  Mechanics,  Physics, 

Physical  Chemistry,  Physiology  and  Psychology.      (Defense  of  Analysis  in  New  Real- 
ism, p.  205.) 
*Comte  did  not  recognize  as  many  sciences. 


Meaning  in  Realism  27 

those  which  obey  a  spatial  and  temporal  order.  The  higher 
strata  of  reality  can  never  be  deduced  from  the  lower.  At 
each  higher  level  something  new  appears  which  is  not  ac- 
counted for  by  that  which  has  preceded.*  The  new  phenomena 
must  be  studied  empirically  just  as  those  phenomena  which 
occupy  a  lower  level  in  the  structure  had  to  be  determined. 
Thus  in  the  issue  between  vitalism  and  mechanism,  Prof. 
Spaulding  believes  that  realism  by  means  of  its  logical  hier- 
archy is  able  to  show  the  false  antithesis.1  Life  is  not  merely 
a  combination  of  physico-chemical  atoms  as  the  mechanist 
claims  nor  is  it  something  entirely  new  as  the  vitalist  claims. 
It  is  to  some  extent  dependent  on  physics  and  chemistry  in  that 
it  presupposes  them  but  there  is  also  something  in  addition 
for  which  the  two  aforementioned  sciences  do  not  account. 

The  universe  for  the  realist  is  truly  a  Platonic  world, 
a  world  of  universals;  entities  subsist.  So  far  as  knowledge 
is  concerned  there  may  be  entities  which  by  definition  have 
no  particular  instance  in  the  knowledge  relation.  Such  enti- 
ties would  belong  to  the  null  class.  Thus  Russell  shows  how 
it  is  possible  to  know  a  general  proposition  without  being 
able  to  show  a  single  instance  of  it.  "All  the  multiplication- 
sums  that  never  have  been  and  never  will  be  thought  of  by 
any  human  being  deal  with  numbers  over  1,000'  is  obviously 
a  true  proposition,  although  no  instance  of  such  a  sum  can 
ever  be  given.  It  is,  therefore,  perfectly  possible  to  know  that 
there  are  propositions  we  do  not  know,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  we  can  give  no  instance  of  such  a  proposition."2 

Propositions  not  only  contain  our  data  but  they  also  pos- 
sess meaning.  Meaning  is  found  in  the  relation  of  implica- 
tion which  holds  between  them.  We  shall  now  discuss  more 
at  length  the  nature  of  propositions  as  presented  by  Holt  and 
Russell.  Anything  and  everything  is  an  entity;  an  entity  is 
anything  which  is  and  since  everything  is,  it  is  therefore  an 
entity.  The  only  thing  that  can  be  said  of  all  entities  is  that 
they  are.  Everything  is;  being  is  the  most  universal  of  all 
categories;  "it  denotes  everything  and  connotes  nothing." 
With  respect  to  the  old  philosophical  dualism  of  mind  and 

1.  Cf.  The  New  Realism,  pp.  243-47  ;  also  New  Rationalism,  p.  386. 

2.  Quoted  from  Perry's  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  p.  318. 

*This   principle   is  not  original   with   realism  ;   it  is   as  old  as   Aristotle  and  Wundt  also 
makes  much  use  of  it. 


28  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

matter,  being  is  neutral;  it  is  quite  outside  these  universes 
of  discourse.1  Sticks,  stones,  trees,  horses,  cattle,  people  and 
governments  are  all  entities,  varying  only  in  degrees  of  com- 
plexity and  kind. 

In  order  to  avoid  circular  definitions,  any  system  must 
start  with  a  number  of  terms  which  are  indefinable.  These 
terms  are  just  given.  Such  terms  are  "individual,"  "class" 
and  "relation,"  which  if  definition  be  attempted,  can  only 
be  stated  in  terms  of  themselves.  Mr.  Russell  would  also  place 
the  relation  of  implication2  among  these  logical  ultimates. 
Thus  when  you  say  that  A  is  greater  than  B  and  B  is  greater 
than  C,  then  A  is  also  greater  than  C,  you  have  an  instance 
of  implication.  You  have  not  defined  the  relation  but  have 
only  given  an  example  of  it.  When  you  try  to  define  it,  you 
have  already  stated  it;  it  is  a  logical  ultimate.  Such  terms 
are  elementary  and  it  is  to  the  interests  of  any  system  to  have 
as  few  of  such  indefinables  as  possible.  The  more  complex 
terms  may  then  be  stated  in  terms  of  the  simple  ones.  The 
relation  between  the  simple  and  complex  terms  is  that  of 
asymmetry,3  i.  e.,  the  inverse  of  the  relation  does  not  hold. 
Thus  the  complex  entities  may  be  stated  in  terms  of  the  simple 
ones  but  not  vice  versa. 

When  entities  enter  into  relation  with  one  another,  they 
form  propositions;  they,  together  with  the  relations  which 
hold  between  them,  form  the  terms  of  the  propositions.  It  is 
the  relation  between  entities  that  generates  propositions,  while 
these  in  turn,  by  means  of  their  own  "logical"  movement,  gen- 
erate systems.  The  terms  are  the  passive  factor,  the  relations 
the  active  factor4  and  the  propositions  bear  the  same  relation 
to  a  system  that  the  relations  bear  to  a  proposition.  The  move- 
ment thus  generated  is  neither  spatial  nor  temporal,  neither 
physical  nor  mental :  it  is  logical.5  Once  start  with  the  propo- 
sitions which  form  the  axioms  and  postulates  of  any  system 
and  the  propositions  generate  their  own  movement  which  pro- 
duces the  system.  These  axioms  and  postulates  correspond  to 
Mr.  Russell's  "hard"  data.6  The  movement  of  the  propositions 


1.  Cf.  Holt:     Concept  of  Consciousness,  pp.  1-37. 

2.  Cf.  Russell:     Principles  of  Mathematics,  pp.  11,  33. 

3.  Cf.  Concept  of  Consciousness,  p.  10. 

4.  Ibid,  p.  6. 
6.  Ibid,  p.  18. 

6.  Cf.  Scientific  Method  in  Philosophy,  p.  77  ff. 


Meaning  in  Realism  29 

is  strictly  logical.  Inference  is  simply  a  name  given  to  the 
psychological  process  of  becoming  aware  of  the  meanings  of 
the  system  and  the  propositions  composing  that  system.  The 
test  of  any  proposition's  fitness  to  be  a  member  of  a  certain 
system  is  its  consistency  with  the  other  propositions  of  the 
system. 

To  the  realist  the  universe  is  serial  in  character.  Each 
of  the  qualities  which  a  thing  possesses  may  be  reduced  to  its 
own  series.1  Thus  we  have  a  color,  an  auditory,  a  temperature, 
a  magnitude  series,  etc.  Any  object  at  any  particular  moment 
is  simply  the  resultant  of  its  intersecting  series.  In  this  way 
the  world  is  "de-thingized"  and  any  object  is  the  resultant  of 
the  series  which  happen  to  be  acting  upon  it  for  the  time 
being.  The  entities  arrange  themselves  in  a  serial  order.  It 
is  this  serial  order  that  generates  the  movement  referred  to 
as  logical.  Consciousness,  too,  is  such  a  series.  It  is  the  sum 
total  of  objects  to  which  the  organism  is  responding  at  any 
given  moment.2  Whether  we  state  it  in  terms  of  a  relation,3 
a  dimension,4  as  a  form  of  energy,5  or  as  a  cross-section  of 
the  environment,6  it  occupies  a  definite  position  in  the  neutral 
hierarchy  just  as  any  other  entity.  Consciousness  is  simply 
an  awareness  of  the  environment  to  which  an  organism  is 
responding.  Entities  pass  in  and  out  of  this  relation  just 
as  they  pass  in  and  out  of  any  other  relation.  When  in  this 
relation  they  are  known.  The  relation  itself  is  quite  accidental 
and  is  by  no  means  a  fundamental  one.  Knowing  is  simply 
one  relation  which  an  entity  may  have.  The  entity  is  the  same 
when  known  as  when  unkno\vn ;  knowing  makes  no  difference 
in  its  essential  characteristics.  Consciousness  is  that  relation 
which  takes  place  when  the  relationship  between  series  pro- 
duces that  state  known  as  awareness. 

The  foregoing  are  some  of  the  most  substantial  pillars 
which  realism  employs  in  erecting  its  temple  of  independence. 
We  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  them  in  order  to  show  their 
relation  to  the  original  thesis.  Merely  to  have  stated  that  this 
is  the  cardinal  thesis  of  realism  would  hardly  have  been  suffi- 

1.  Cf.  Ibid,  p.  88  ff. ;  also  The  New  Rationalism,  pp.  156  ff. ;  169  ff. 

2.  Cf.  Holt :  Concept  of  Consciousness,  Ch.  IX. 

3.  Cf.  Woodbridge  in  Carman  Memorial  Volume. 

4.  Cf .  Spaulding :  The  New  Rationalism,  pp.  470-486. 

5.  Cf.  Montague  in  Columbia  Commemorative  Volume  to  William  James. 

6.  Cf .  Holt :  Concept  of  Consciousness. 


30  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

cient  and  much  less  would  it  have  been  convincing.  It  is 
indeed  a  magnificent  logical  structure  that  marks  the  last  rest- 
ing place  of  subjective  idealism;  it  is  also  a  most  handsome 
monument  to  Bishop  Berkeley's  genius.  The  pragmatist,  how- 
ever, refuses  to  be  crushed  by  the  weight  of  this  splendid  logi- 
cal edifice  and  seriously  objects  to  being  buried  alongside 
of  the  Bishop.  And  it  is  quite  apparent  that  the  pragmatist 
is  still  very  much  alive  for  we  are  hearing  vehement  protests 
against  such  a  burial  on  the  grounds  that  the  structure  has 
not  fallen  on  his  shoulders  for  the  realist,  alas !  in  his  endeavor 
to  refute  subjectivism  has  quite  overlooked  the  importance  of 
meaning  and  it  is  not  a  world  of  mere  existence  in  which  the 
pragmatist  is  interested  but  one  of  meaning.  Unless  the 
realist  can  defend  his  position  at  the  point  of  meaning  the 
pragmatist  cannot  go  with  him.  Meanings,  too,  must  be  quite 
independent  of  human  purposes  and  problems.  We  shall  now 
see  how  the  realist  attempts  to  defend  his  position  at  this  point. 
The  mind  of  course  has  no  part  to  play  in  the  determin- 
ing of  meanings  if  the  realist  is  consistent.  This  is  exactly 
what  he  attempts  to  establish.  The  relations  hold  between 
entities  and  propositions  regardless  of  whether  or  not  they 
ever  come  into  the  knowing  relation.  The  meanings  are  just 
there,  there  to  be  discovered  when  one  observes  them.  The 
mind  is  a  spectator  which  simply  beholds  the  implications  of 
propositions;  propositions  are  entirely  objective  and  imply 
one  another  through  their  own  logical  movement.  The  mind 
is  purely  passive;  it  simply  becomes  aware  of  the  movement 
of  the  system.  Mr.  Russell  finds  it  wholly  as  passive  in  infer- 
ence as  in  an  ordinary  act  of  perception.1  Propositions  imply 
one  another.  Implication  is  a  relation  which  holds  between 
propositions.  Inference  is  simply  the  psychological  process 
of  becoming  aware  of  the  implications  which  hold  between 
propositions.  Since  for  Russell,  all  induction  is  a  form  of 
deduction  because  the  principle  of  induction  itself  presupposes 
deduction,  all  inference  is  deductive.2  Mr.  Russell  later  sees 
the  difficulty  with  this  spectator  attitude  toward  life  and  con- 
fesses that  judgment  cannot  simply  be  "the  apprehension  of 


1.  Principles  of  Mathematics,   p.   33. 

2.  Cf.  Problems  of  Philosophy,  Ch.  VI. 


Meaning  in  Realism  31 

a  fact"  for  this  would  give  no  account  of  error.1  He  therefore 
makes  it  consist  of  a  relation  of  at  least  three  terms,  a  point 
which  we  shall  discuss  later.  It  is  only  when  we  come  to  truth 
and  error  that  this  mere  apprehending  relation  is  openly  dis- 
carded by  Russell  although  some  inconsistent  statements  have 
paved  the  way  for  its  graceful  dismissal.  Both  Montague  and 
Russell  are  forced  to  alternate  between  two  contradictory  posi- 
tions4 but  refuse  to  recognize  the  insufficiency  of  the  role  of 
the  spectator.  Prof.  Perry  is  not  a  good  realist  at  this  point 
for  he  quite  frankly  admits  that  both  meaning  and  value 
are  types  of  dependent  relations.2  Prof.  Woodbridge's  realism 
also  fails  him  here  for  he  holds  that  consciousness  is  a  relation 
of  meaning.3  Even  Mr.  Russell  is  now  not  quite  so  sure  as 
he  once  was  that  "good  and  bad  are  properties  of  things  just 
as  round  and  square  are."4 

Both  Russell  and  Spaulding  find  the  old  logic  very  inade- 
quate because  it  fails  to  take  account  of  relations  other  than 
a  subject-predicate  kind.  The  latter  contends  that  it  was 
developed  from  the  Greek  conception  of  thing5  and  conse- 
quently takes  into  account  only  such  relations  as  one  gets 
from  the  substance-attribute  relation.  It,  therefore,  needs  to 
be  supplemented  by  the  relations  which  a  logoic  built  around 
the  conception  of  order  can  supply.  Relations  so  considered 
may  be  classified  as  to  symmetry,  transitivity  and  as  to  the 
number  of  terms  employed  in  the  relation.6  The  examples  of 
the  implicative  situation  cited  by  Prof.  Spaulding  are  of  these 
types.  Thus,  A  is  father  of  B  implies  that  B  is  child  of  A. 
(One  cannot  here  say  "son-of"  for  the  implication  may  also 
be  "daughter-of,"  the  relation  being  of  the  "one-many"  type.) 
If  A  is  to  the  left  of  B  then  B  must  be  to  the  right  of  A.  The 
relation  here  involved  is  one  of  asymmetry,  not  being  identical 
with  its  inverse.  A  is  similar  to  B  implies  that  B  is  similar 
to  A.  Here  we  have  an  instance  in  which  the  relation  involved 
in  the  implication  is  symmetrical  as  we  would  also  have  in  the 
case  of  equality. 


1.  Scientific  Method  in  Philosophy,  p.  58. 

2.  Cf.  A  Realistic  Theory  of  Independence  in  The  New  Realism,  pp.  140-44. 

3.  Cf.  Carman  Memorial  Volume. 

4.  Preface  to  Mysticism  and  Logic. 

5.  Cf.  The  New  Rationalism,  pp.  29-36. 

6.  Cf.  Royce's  essay   in  Enc.   Phil.  Sc.   Vol.   II.  Sec.   2. 


32  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

Any  fact  may  express  itself  through  a  proposition.  When 
anything  has  a  certain  quality  or  a  certain  relation  it  is  a  fact. 
The  fact  is  objective  and  independent  of  any  assertion  made 
about  it.  If  I  say  that  "the  book  is  red"  the  assertion  involves 
the  attributing  of  a  certain  quality  to  a  certain  object.  Wheth- 
er or  not  the  book  has  this  quality  is  a  fact  which  has  nothing 
to  do  with  my  judgment  in  regard  to  it.  Mr.  Russell  says : 

"Given  any  fact,  there  is  an  assertion  which  expresses 
the  fact.  The  fact  itself  is  objective,  and  independent  of  our 
thought  or  opinion  about  it;  but  the  assertion  is  something 
which  involves  thought,  and  may  be  either  true  or  false.  .  .  . 
A  form  of  words*  which  must  be  either  true  or  false  I  shall 
call  a  proposition.  Thus  a  proposition  is  the  same  as  what 
may  significantly  be  asserted  or  denied.  A  proposition  which 
expresses  what  we  have  called  a  fact,  i.  e.,  which  when  asserted, 
asserts  that  a  certain  thing  has  a  certain  quality,  or  that  cer- 
tain things  have  a  certain  relation,  will  be  called  an  atomic 
proposition."1 

Besides  the  "atomic"  we  also  have  "molecular"  and  "gen- 
eral" propositions.  It  is  the  molecular  type  in  which  we  are 
primarily  interested  as  it  is  this  type  that  gives  rise  to  the  rela- 
tion of  implication,  thus  making  inference  possible.  In  spite 
of  symbolic  logic's  claims  for  newness,  this  molecular  type 
of  proposition  seems  only  a  new  way  of  saying  "hypothetical," 
while  our  so-called  "atomic"  propositions  are  only  a  new  way 
for  saying  "categorical."  The  general  proposition  which  is 
the  most  perfect  because  of  its  purely  "formal"  character, 
turns  out  to  be  our  old  friend  the  syllogism  wearing  a  new 
coat.  It  may  be  stated  as  follows :  "If  anything  has  a  certain 
property,  and  whatever  has  this  property  has  a  certain  other 
property,  then  the  thing  in  question  has  the  other  property."2 
This  is  a  highly  general  proposition  and  is  purely  formal  in 
character.  The  interesting  thing  about  it  is  that  even  in  the 
syllogism  we  find  the  relations  both  of  asymmetry  and  transi- 
tivity, for  the  discovery  of  which  the  symbolic  logician  takes 
great  pride  in  his  originality. 

If  knowledge  is  to  be  gained  by  the  kind  of  inference  that 


1.  Scientific  Method   in    Philosophy,  p.   52. 

2.  Ibid,   p.   57. 
"Italics  mine. 


Meaning  in  Eealism  33 

is  represented  in  our  molecular  propositions,  then  we  may  as 
well  give  up  in  despair.  Suppose  I  tell  you  that  if  I  study 
I  shall  have  my  lesson.  From  this  how  are  you  to  know 
whether  or  not  I  am  going  to  have  my  lesson.  By  the  impli- 
cation, of  course,  says  Mr.  Russell.  It  does  not  inform  you  as 
to  whether  or  not  I  am  going  to  study,  but  if  I  do  study,  I  shall 
have  my  lesson.  The  form  is  perfect  and  if  you  know  the 
proposition  and  its  logical  movement  you  have  all  the  infor- 
mation that  is  needed  provided  I  do  my  part  and  study  my 
lesson.  But  how  does  this  compare  with  what  may  actually 
happen?  Perhaps  I  have  tried  to  deceive  you,  or  granted  my 
truthfulness,  the  lesson  may  be  more  difficult  than  expected 
and  despite  special  effort  on  my  part  it  is  not  mastered.  The 
illustration  simply  shows  the  futility  of  inference  in  leading 
to  truth  when  the  implication  is  purely  formal. 

Propositions  constitute  data  as  well  as  meaning  for  the 
realist.  Mr.  Russell  classifies  data  as  to  their  logical  and 
psychological  primitive  or  derivative  character.  The  classes 
may  take  any  possible  combinations  such  as  those  data  which 
are  psychologically  primitive  but  logically  derivative  or  vice 
versa,  etc.2  A  primitive  belief,  either  logical  or  psychological, 
is  one  which  we  hold  independent  of  other  beliefs ;  it  does  not 
rest  for  its  validity  upon  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of  some 
other  belief.  Thus  we  believe  that  the  things  we  see  in  per- 
ception do  not  depend  upon  our  seeing  them  for  their  existence, 
but  that  they  exist  whether  or  not  we  happen  to  be  looking 
at  them.  This  belief  is  logically  primitive  in  that  it  is  not 
derived  from  any  other  belief  but  is  psychologically  derivative 
in  that  it  depends  upon  previously  having  had  experiences 
which  justify  the  belief.  Contra  wise,  the  things  of  which  we 
are  not  aware  we  believe  to  exist  not  because  of  previous 
experience  and  other  beliefs.  Hence  it  is  a  psychologically 
primitive  belief.  "Our  data  are  now  primarily  the  facts  of 
sense  (i.  e.,  of  our  own  sense-data)  and  the  laws  of  logic."3 

It  is  hardly  correct  to  speak  of  implication  and  inference 
at  one  end  of  the  process  and  truth  and  error  at  the  other  for 
there  seems  to  be  no  process  involved  in  symbolic  logic. 


1.  Cf.    Scientific   Method   in    Philosophy,    p.   54   ff. 

2.  Cf.  Ibid,  pp.  67-72. 

3.  Scientific  Method  in  Philosophy,   p.  72. 


34  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

Knowledge  is  simply  a  matter  of  beholding  propositions  and 
these  propositions  are  either  true  or  false.  How  it  is  possi- 
ble for  such  a  thing  as  a  false  proposition  to  be  exhibited  is 
for  most  of  us  a  mystery,  but  the  realist  has  a  method  of 
accounting  for  error.  It  is  a  method  but  as  to  how  well  it 
succeeds  we  shall  judge  later. 

One  of  the  ways  in  which  the  realist  accounts  for  error 
is  well  illustrated  by  Dr.  Montague's  "epistemological  trian- 
gle."1 In  this  triangle  we  have  (1)  the  actual  existing  external 
object,  (2)  the  cerebral  state  itself  and  (3)  the  object  per- 
ceived or  apprehended.  Error  may  arise  in  either  of  two  ways. 
It  may  be  due  to  the  energy  arising  from  the  object  being  dis- 
torted either  at  the  physical  or  psychical  medium  of  trans- 
mission. The  former  gives  rise  to  errors  of  perception  while 
the  latter  gives  rise  to  those  of  inference.2  These  two  types 
of  error  are  not  mutually  exclusive  for  it  makes  little  differ- 
ence whether  we  say  that  the  senses  have  reported  incorrectly, 
or  whether  we  infer  a  wrong  relation  in  the  spatio-temporal- 
qualitative  order.  In  either  case  the  error  is  real  and  object- 
ive. The  classic  illustrations  of  the  rails  appearing  to  con- 
verge at  a  distance  as  one  looks  up  the  track  and  the  straight 
stick  appearing  as  bent  when  thrust  obliquely  into  water 
and  reflected  through  that  medium  are  cases  in  point.  These 
illusions  are  real  and  have  just  as  much  validity  as  a  true  per- 
ception. When  the  stick  appears  bent  the  relational  complex 
which  is  observed  is  a  real  complex  and  is  not  merely  a  sub- 
jective illusion;  it  is  quite  as  objective  as  when  the  same  stick 
appears  to  be  straight  when  in  some  other  relation. 

Just  as  there  are  two  ways  in  which  error  may  arise,  so 
there  are  two  ways  by  which  truth  may  occur.  It  may  be  due 
either  to  a  correct  presentation  of  the  object  so  that  the  object 
as  known  corresponds  with  the  object  to  be  known,  or  to  the 
corrective  function  of  inference  upon  a  distorted  complex  so 
that  the  object  is  known  as  it  really  is.  When  an  object  is 
perceived  as  it  really  is  the  energy  at  the  third  angle  of  the 
triangle  is  the  same  as  that  at  the  first ;  it  has  not  been  modi- 
fied by  the  transmitting  media.  In  the  case  where  the  rails 
are  known  to  be  parallel,  inference  has  corrected  the  error 


1.  Cf.  A  Realistic  Theory  of  Truth  and  Error  in  The  New  Realism,  p.  286. 

2.  Cf.  Ibid,  p.  289  ff. 


Meaning  in  Realism  35 

that  would  otherwise  have  been  inevitable  had  the  object 
been  judged  by  its  visual  appearance.  This  is  all  very  well 
but  how  could  such  a  passive  psychological  process  as  infer- 
ence ever  perform  a  corrective  function?  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  inference  is  simply  a  matter  of  becoming  aware 
of  objective  implications.  Here  Doctor  Montague  is  evidently 
introducing  a  new  conception  of  inference.  Furthermore,  he 
must  have  forgotten  that  in  the  knowing  process  we  have  an 
instance  of  the  externality  of  relations.  This  being  the  case, 
how  is  it  possible  for  the  spatio-temporal-qualitative  order  to 
be  modified  at  either  medium  of  our  epistemological  triangle? 
Objects  should  always  be  presented  as  they  are  if  the  theory 
of  external  relations  is  to  hold  universally  of  the  knowing 
process.  In  order  to  account  for  error  the  realist  has  evidently 
abandoned  one  of  his  favorite  offsprings,  the  theory  of  the 
externality  of  the  knowledge  relation. 

Prof.  Holt  would  make  contradiction  the  essential  char- 
acteristic of  error.  He  takes  particular  pains  to  point  out 
that  contradictions  appear  in  propositions  as  over  against  the 
conception  of  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Following  Russell,  he 
holds  that  the  latter  is  "either  false  or  meaningless."1  In 
order  to  have  a  contradiction  in  terms,  being  must  be  denied 
but  such  a  denial  is  meaningless  for  everything  is.  When 
propositions  contradict  each  other  we  have  error.  The  result 
of  this  conception  is  that  error  seems  to  be  about  all  there 
is  in  the  world  for  "Nature  is  a  seething  chaos  of  contra- 
diction." 

"All  collisions  between  bodies,  all  interference  between2 
energies,  all  processes  of  warming  and  cooling,  of  electrically 
charging  and  discharging,  of  starting  and  stopping,  of  com- 
bining and  separating,  are  processes  of  which  one  undoes  the 
other.  And  they  cannot  be  defined  by  the  scientist  except  in 
propositions  which  manifestly  contradict  one  another.  All 
nature  is  so  full  of  these  mutually  negative  processes  that  we 
are  moved  to  admiration  when  a  few  forces  co-operate  long 
enough  to  form  what  we  call  an  organism;  and  even  then 
decay  sets  in  forthwith." 

How  absurd  to  speak  of  such  contradictions  as  cases  of 
error !  Yet  this  is  what  the  logic  demands.  The  natural  neces- 

1.  Concept  of  Consciousness,  pp.  262,  8. 

2.  Ibid,   p.    275. 


36  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

sity  of  the  physical  world,  when  generalized,  becomes  the 
logical  necessity  of  the  neutral  realm.  Contradictory  proposi- 
tions are  the  occasion  for  error.  These  appear  in  the  objective 
world  as  well  as  in  the  subjective;  error  is  not  merely  sub- 
jective. Objective  error  is  real  for  contradictory  propositions 
appear  in  the  world  of  nature.  Prof.  Holt  recognizes  both 
subjective  and  objective  error  but  seems  partial  to  the  neutral 
order.1 

Prof.  Spaulding  finds  no  difficulty  in  accounting  for 
error.  He  disposes  of  the  problem — which  to  him  is  not  a 
problem  at  all  of  course — by  relegating  it  to  the  world  of  sub- 
sistence.2 By  placing  error  in  this  realm  it  may  still  be  just 
as  real  and  just  as  objective  as  one  could  possibly  desire  to 
have  it.  In  the  case  of  error  the  person  judging  has  merely 
mistaken  a  subsistent  for  an  existent.  Both  subsistents  and 
existents  are  equally  real.3  All  entities  subsist  whereas  some 
only  exist.  Some  only  exist  at  certain  times  and  certain  places 
while  there  are  others  which  may  never  attain  the  specific  cor- 
relation which  is  characteristic  of  existent  entities.  An  exam- 
ple of  the  latter  would  be  that  of  the  "null  class,"  a  class 
which  has  no  particular  instance.  The  illustration  cited  above 
from  Russell  is  such  an  example.  If  a  man  should  mistake  his 
friend  for  a  post  through  the  dense  fog  and  he  were  very 
anxious  to  see  his  friend  at  this  particular  time,  it  would 
indeed  be  consoling  to  him  to  know  that  the  post  merely  sub- 
sisted in  this  particular  relational  situation  whereas  his  friend 
had  actually  been  an  existent  in  the  complex.  Both  the  friend 
and  the  post  are  equally  real  but  the  post  only  subsisted  while 
the  friend  existed.  Prof.  Spaulding  says : 

"Between  the  knowing  of  that  state  of  affairs  which  the 
theory4  describes  and  the  (subsistential)  entities  of  which  this 
state  of  affairs  holds,  there  is  a  relation  of  correspondence. 
If,  now,  one  takes  these  entities  to  be  also  existential,  and  they 
are  not,  one  is  in  error.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they  are 
existential,  then  there  is  not  only  a  correspondence  between 
the  knowing  process  and  the  subsistents,  but  also  between  the 
subsistents  and  the  existents,  as  well  as  between  the  existents 


1.  Cf.   Concept  of  Consciousness,   Ch.   XIII. 

2.  Cf.  The  New  Rationalism,  p.  293  ff. ;  p.  429  ;  p.  376  ff . 

3.  Cf.   Ibid,   p.   494. 

4.  Ibid,  p.  2S5. 


Meaning  in  Realism  37 

and  the  knowing.  But,  because  that  which  one  takes  to  exist 
does  not  exist,  is  no  ground  for  making  it  subjective.  Rather, 
if  such  an  entity  finds  its  place  in  a  consistent  and  implicative 
theory,  then,  although  not  existential,  it  is  subsist ential,  and  as 
objective  as  any  existential  entity." 

Mr.  Russell,  although  he  finds  it  not  at  all  logically  refut- 
able to  uphold  the  position  of  objective  falsehood,  prefers  not 
to  do  so  if  he  can  possibly  avoid  it  and  has  rather  an  ingenious 
way  of  solving  the  problem.  He  grasps  the  problem  at  its 
roots  when  he  makes  an  analysis  of  the  kind  of  relation  pre- 
sented by  every  judgmental  situation.1  The  difficulty  with 
previous  correspondence  theories  has  been  that  they  have 
conceived  of  judgment  as  a  two  term  relation,  whereas  the 
fact  of  the  matter  is  that  it  is  always  at  least  a  three  term 
relation,  consisting  in  a  relation  of  the  mind  to  several  other 
terms.  If  all  judgments  were  true  there  would  be  no  diffi- 
culty in  conceiving  of  it  as  a  two  term  relation,  viz.,  that  of  a 
mind  apprehending  a  fact.  But  since  all  judgments  are  not 
true,  we  must  either  consider  judgment  a  relation  of  more 
than  two  terms  or  admit  the  possibility  of  objective  false- 
hoods. We  have  seen  that  Professors  Holt,  Spaulding  and 
Montague  have  chosen  the  latter  alternative  but  Mr.  Russell 
gives  quite  a  different  statement. 

Without  judgments  and  beliefs  there  would  be  no  such 
thing  as  truth  and  error  and  yet  the  truth  of  a  proposition  is 
in  no  sense  dependent  upon  a  judgment  in  regard  to  it.  In 
the  one  case,  truth  and  falsity  are  properties  of  belief  and  in 
the  other  they  are  properties  of  propositions.  If  A  kills 
B  because  of  C  the  relation  holds  whether  or  not  there  is  a 
judgment  in  regard  to  it.  Here  we  have  a  proposition  that 
is  either  true  or  false.  Your  judgment  or  my  judgment  or 
anybody  else's  judgment  does  not  affect  the  truth  of  the 
proposition  either  one  way  or  the  other.  The  complex  of  A's 
killing  B  because  of  C  is  a  fact  which  simply  is.  When  a  per- 
son judges  this  relational  complex  so  that  the  same  relation 
expressed  in  the  judgment  actually  holds  between  the  terms 
of  the  proposition  judged,  the  judgment  is  a  true  one;  if  the 
relation  judged  does  not  hold  between  the  terms,  the  judg- 
ment is  false.  Mr.  Russell's  own  statement  is  as  follows: 

1.     Cf.  Philosophical  Essays,  Essay  VII. 


38  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

"Every  judgment  is  a  relation  of  the  mind  to  several  objects, 
one  of  which  is  a  relation;  the  judgment  is  true  when  the 
relation  which  is  one  of  the  objects  relates  the  other  objects, 
otherwise  it  is  false."1  And  again,  "Judgment  is  a  relation  of 
the  mind  to  several  other  terms ;  when  these  other  terms  have 
inter  se  a  "corresponding"  relation,  the  judgment  is  true; 
when  not,  it  is  false/'2  Thus,  in  the  above  statement  if  I  judge 
that  A  killed  C  because  of  B  my  judgment  is  false  because 
there  is  not  a  correspondence  of  the  relation  "killed"  with 
that  which  holds  in  the  terms  of  the  proposition  judged. 

We  have  seen  that  the  theory  of  external  relations,  Pla- 
tonic realism  which  gives  a  dual  world  of  subsistence  and 
existence,  epistemological  monism  whereby  it  is  possible  for 
the  object  itself  to  be  directly  presented  in  an  act  of  knowledge 
and  the  various  statements  of  consciousness,  whether  it  be 
that  of  the  relational,  the  dimensional  or  the  energistic  type, 
are  all  tools  by  means  of  which  the  realist  defends  his  original 
thesis  of  the  independence  of  being  and  knowing.  The  posi- 
tion holds  as  over  against  Berkeleyan  idealism.  Whether  or 
not  the  same  may  be  said  for  it  when  meanings  are  involved  is 
quite  another  question  and  one  which  we  shall  discuss  at 
another  point.  The  realist  has,  however,  attempted  to  defend 
his  position  at  this  point  in  the  manner  already  indicated. 
The  meanings,  both  in  the  form  of  implication  and  truth,  are 
simply  there  for  one  who  will  look  and  behold  them.  Truth 
is  merely  a  matter  of  becoming  aware  of  the  right  implica- 
tions which  hold  between  propositions  while  error  is  failure 
to  apprehend  successfully  the  correct  relations  between  such 
propositions. 

The  foregoing  is  a  statement  of  the  general  realistic  posi- 
tion in  regard  to  meaning.  Let  us  now  pass  on  to  a  similar 
study  of  the  pragmatic  conception  of  meaning. 

1.  Philosophical    Essays,    p.    181. 

2.  Ibid,  p.   178. 


CHAPTER  III. 
Pragmatism  and  Meaning 

Coming  now  to  pragmatism,  the  center  of  interest  is 
shifted  somewhat  from  that  which  we  noted  in  the  previous 
chapter.  Instead  of  attending  so  much  to  the  scenery,  we  are 
now  primarily  interested  in  the  actors  themselves.  Man  is 
no  longer  viewed  as  a  spectator  watching  the  events  of  an 
alien  world  but  is  himself  a  participant  in  those  events.  The 
stage  is  not  already  constructed  for  him  but  he  is  himself 
constantly  building  the  stage  so  that  it  better  serves  his  pur- 
poses, ministers  to  his  needs  and  satisfies  his  interests  and 
desires. 

We  had  occasion  to  note  in  our  first  chapter  that  in  its 
early  days,  pragmatism  concerned  itself  with  combating  vari- 
ous species  of  absolutism,  particularly  centering  its  polemic 
about  the  truth  question.  The_Bragmatist,_  priding  himself 
upon  his  interest  in  humanity,  quite  rightly  noted  that  the 

•m  d'etre  for  any  philosophy  ultimately  rests  upon  its 
ability  to  serve  human  beings  by  enabling  them  to  discriminate 
the  true  from  the  false ;  translated  into  ethical  terms,  it  must 
give  them  a  working  criterion  for  distinguishing  the  right 
from  the  wrong.  This,  absolute  idealism  had  failed  to  do  and 
it  was  the  pragmatist  who  summoned  the  representatives  of 
this  philosophy  to  court.  In  that  chapter  it  was  also  pointed 
out  that  the  pragmatist  faced  his  opponents  by  upholding  the 
thesis  of  "the.  .relativity  of  truth."  That  instrumentalism, 
which  now  more  nearly  represents  the  pragmatic  position,  is 
an  outgrowth  of  the  controversy  and  is  the  main  tool  which 
the  pragmatist  has  employed  in  defending  his  counter-thesis, 
we  are  now  about  to  establish. 

So  long  as  we  are  interested  in  the  "Whole  of  Reality" 
and  do  not  care  about  the  meaning  of  the  world  in  which  we 
live,  we  can  get  along  very  nicely  with  absolute  truths  and 
absolute  goods,  but  the  minute  we  attempt  to  put  any  content 
into  these  values,  the  abstract  ideal  of  Truth  proves  only  an 
empty  husk  in  which  we  may  dwell,  provided  we  wish  to  die 
before  our  bodily  processes  cease;  but  if  we  want  to  live  we 


40  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

cannot  dwell  in  such  a  husk  but  must  come  out  into  the  world 
of  meanings,  of  happenings  where  things  are  taking  place. 
Whether  we  like  it  or  no,  constituted  as  we  are,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  live  in  the  latter  kind  of  world.  If  our  philosophy  is 
to  justify  itself,  it  must  enable  us  to  get  around  in  the  kind 
of  a  world  in  which  we  live;  it  must  apply  to  our  world, 
a  world  of  change  and  of  happenings  and  not  to  some  fixed 
and  ready-made,  completed,  ideal  world. 

All  this  the  pragmatist  sees  and  consequently  shapes  his 
philosophy  accordingly.  He  offers  us  a  statement  of  truth 
that  will  apply  to  our  world.  He  readily  sees  that  if  truth  is 
to  have  any  meaning,  it  can  only  be  as  it  is  related  to  some 
human  purpose  or  enterprise.  Taken  by  itself  it  is  only  so 
much  verbiage;  when  we  find  it  it  is  always  connected  with 
some  problem  of  some  particular  individual  or  individuals. 
It  is  not  something  that  is  floating  around  in  the  air  for  which 
we  may  grab  as  we  would  for  a  piece  of  bread  when  hungry, 
but  represents  the  status  of  a  logical  situation.  Truth  and 
falsity  are  relative  to  conditions  and  circumstances,  these 
being  determined  by  the  needs  of  the  problem  under  investi- 
gation. 

When  we  examine  the  nature  of  truth  we  find  that  it  is 
not  a  finished  product  but  that  it  always  appears  as  it  is 
related  to  a  given  situation ;  we  never  find  The  Truth  but  meet 
with  specific  truths  in  the  course  of  our  experience.  Truths 
are  continually  being  made  with  the  growth  and  diversifica- 
tion of  experience.  If  then,  says  the  pragmatist,  we  want  to 
know  when  a  thing  is  true  and  when  false,  we  must  place  it 
in  experience,  must  find  out  what  kind  of  experience  we  have 
when  we  designate  certain  things  as  true  and  others  false. 
It  is  here  that  his  instrumentalism  comes  in,  for  in  the  process 
of  analysis,  we  find  that  the  distinction  between  true  and  false 
arises  when  we  recognize  the  instrumental  character  of  our 
thinking.  We  may  search  for  Absolute  Truth  and  take  delight 
in  an  independent  thought  but  the  minute  we  attempt  to  put 
any  meaning  into  our  terms,  we  find  that  truth  is  specific  and 
that  thinking  is  instrumental;  it  is  adaptive  and  purposeful 
and  aids  us  in  perfecting  a  more  satisfactory  adjustment 
between  ourselves  and  our  environment. 


Pragmatism  and  Meaning  41 

It  is  one  thing  to  show  that  a  thing  may  be  true  in  one 
situation  and  false  in  another  or  that  a  certain  line  of  conduct 
may  be  right  in  a  given  situation  and  wrong  in  another  and 
reject  absolutism  upon  this  basis;  but  it  is  quite  another  thing 
to  point  out  the  reasons  for  its  being  thus.  True  enough,  we 
do  refer  to  the  problem  in  hand  when  we  demonstrate  the 
facts  but  it  is  still  another  step  to  arrive  at  the  instrumental 
character  of  thought.  When  we  meet  with  concrete  instances 
of  conduct  which  we  call  "right"  or  see  facts  which  we  call 
"true,"  these  adjectives  always  apply  to  situations  where 
human  activity  is  involved.  The  natural  thing  to  do  would 
be  to  connect  these  adjectives  with  situations  in  which  human 
purposes  are  involved  but  instead  the  absolutist  asks  us  to 
cling  to  a  truth  that  is  just  given  and  a  thought  that  just 
thinks.  We  cannot  apply  it  in  life  but  there  still  is 
a  Truth  that  is  just  true  and  a  thought  an  sich  whose  business 
it  is  to  match  an  external  and  independent  world.  Once  rec- 
ognize the  adaptive  character  of  consciousness  and  the  instru- 
mental nature  of  thought  and  we  shall  no  longer  stand  in 
need  of  absolute  truths  and  absolute  rights.  These  the  prag- 
matist  frankly  admits  and  with  such  recognition,  we  shall  now 
see  how  he  is  able  to  introduce  meaning  into  his  world. 

We  start  with  an  organism  that  is  adjusting  itself  to 
an  environment;  nor  is  it  purely  a  matter  of  adjusting  itself 
but  is  equally  a  matter  of  adjusting  the  environment  to  itself. 
The  principle  works  both  ways;  there  is  a  constant  interac- 
tion between  organism  and  environment.  In  the  course  of  this 
process  difficulties  arise;1  the  organism  is  obstructed  in  its 
activity;  its  desires  have  not  been  fulfilled  satisfactorily. 
Consequently  if  action  is  to  continue  the  situation  must  be 
reconstructed,  either  to  enable  it  to  continue  in  the  line  in 
which  it  has  been  inhibited  or  to  turn  it  into  an  equally  desir- 
able channel,  one  which  will  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  organism. 
It  may  be  food,  shelter  or  clothing  that  is  demanded  and  if 
these  are  not  forthcoming  from  the  environment  at  hand, 
it  is  up  to  the  individual  to  reconstruct  the  situation  in  such 
manner  that  the  desire  may  be  satisfied.  Could  all  desires  be 
satisfied  without  effort  on  our  part,  we  should  be  living  in  a 


1.     Cf.    Dewey :    "Reflex    Arc    Conquest    in    Psychology."      Psych.    Rev.    Vol.    Ill,    p.    357 ; 
also  Journal  of  Phil.,   Psych,   and   Sc.  Method-.,   Vol.   IV,   pp.   664  ff. 


42  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

world  in  which  individuals  respond  directly  to  presented 
stimuli  and  one  in  which  thinking  as  such  would  not  take  place. 
So  long  as  the  method  of  responding  directly  to  stimuli 
is  effective,  there  is  no  occasion  for  thinking.  It  is  because 
this  method  often  brings  undesirable  consequences  that 
thought  is  provoked  in  order  that  more  satisfactory  results 
may  be  obtained  in  the  future.  This  is  only  another  way  of 
saying  that  "necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention."  As  the 
rudimentary  desires  are  satisfied,  either  by  instinct  or  through 
the  mediation  of  thought,  our  interests  become  broader  and 
our  desires  increase  so  that  if  our  needs  are  all  to  be  satisfied, 
intelligence  must  again  intervene.  At  each  stage  of  the  process 
thought  becomes  free  to  reconstruct  its  own  ends ;  wants  that 
were  once  a  luxury  become  necessities.  Thus  railroads,  tele- 
graphs, telephones,  electric  lights,  steam  heat,  etc.,  were  all 
once  luxuries  but  have  now  become  necessities.  The  term 
"practical"  interest  or  "practical"  need  is  therefore  relative 
to  individual  development  and  social  culture.  When  the  prag- 
matist  maintains  that  reflection  grows  out  of  a  "practical" 
situation  he  does  not  mean  that  it  is  purely  a  matter  of  secur- 
ing bread  and  butter  as  so  many  have  interpreted  him  to 
mean.  That  necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention  is  only  half 
of  the  story ;  it  is  equally  as  true  that  "invention  is  the  mother 
of  necessity." 

Whatever  else  the  nature  of  the  practical  situation  in 
Tvhich  thinking  arises  may  be,  it  is  always  a  problematic  situa- 
tion. 1~~T>y  such  a  situation  we  mean  one  in  which  action  has 
been  inhibited  and  desire  cannot  be  satisfied  directly  but  only 
by  mean's  of  a  reconstruction  of  the  situation ;  it  is  a  situation 
that  involves  wants.  The  meaning  is  ambiguous  so  that  the 
individual  does  not  know  what  line  of  conduct  will  prove 
most  fruitful  in  bringing  about  the  desired  .reconstruction. 
The  data  present  conflicting  meanings.  If  the  meaning  of 
the  facts  were  perfectly  obvious,  we  should  have  no  problem 
at  all  but  should  react  directly  to  the  stimulus  presented.  It 
is  the  conflict  of  meanings,  the  doubt  as  to  what  course  is  most 
wise  to  pursue  that  gives  rise  to  the  problem. 

The  problem  always  involves  the  experience  of  an  indi- 
vidual; it  arises  in  his  experience.2  It  is  his  interest,  his 

1.  Cf.  Dewey:  Essays  in  Experimental  Logic,  Ch.  III. 

2.  Cf.  G.  H.  Mead:  Scientific  Method  and  Individual  Thinker  in  Creative  Intelligence. 


Pragmatism  and  Meaning  43 

desire,  his  experience  that  calls  for  a  reconstruction  of  the 
situation.  Other  individuals  may  or  may  not  have  had  a  simi- 
lar experience.  This  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  the  present 
situation — the  one  in  which  the  problem  appears — involves  his 
experience.  Just  what  the  experience  means  he  does  not 
know ;  it  is  an  anomaly  for  him.  It  therefore  commands  his 
attention  that  he  may  be  able  to  interpret  it  properly.  If  he 
can  find  out  what  it  means  this  time,  he  will  have  more  data 
from  which  he  may  infer  probable  consequences  in  future  situ- 
ations or  may  be  of  assistance  to  others  in  similar  situations. 
The  experience  is  his ;  it  is  his  own  private  problem.  Although 
the  problem  is  his  it  is  also  a  social  matter.  It  had  its  birth 
under  social  conditions  for  the  individual  in  whose  experience 
it  has  appeared,  is  not  an  isolated  individual  but  is  a  social 
individual.  He  is  living  in  a  society  and  it  was  out  of  this 
social  environment  that  the  problem  arose.  The  thought  that 
he  employs  for  the  solution  of  the  problem  is  social  in  charac- 
ter; he  is  dependent  upon  society  for  many  of  his  meanings 
and  interpretations.  The  problem,  although  private,  is  not 
private  in  the  sense  of  belonging  to  a  purely  private  and 
entirely  independent  individual.  It  is  private  in  the  sense  that 
it  is  his  but  he  himself  is  a  part  of  society.  The  individual 
may  go  to  others  for  its  solution  but  the  problem  itself  is  a 
product  of  the  individual's  experience.  The  problem  arises  . 
within  the  experience  of  the  individual  but  his  experience  is  ; 
a  social  experience. 

It  is  the  unique  character  of  the  experience  in  which  the 
individual  figures  that  enables  us  to  account  for  the  exception, 
and  it  is  the  exception  in  which  modern  science  is  primarily 
interested.  Here  we  find  a  striking  difference  between  modern 
and  ancient  science.  The  traditional  logic  had  no  place  for  the 
exception.  It  was  treated  as  a  "freak"  or  an  anomaly  in 
nature  and  was  a  fit  subject  of  interest  only  as  a  curiosity. 
The  exception  afforded  difficulties  with  the  Aristotelian 
scheme  of  things;  it  could  not  comfortably  be  placed  under 
a  universal  and  consequently  had  no  recognized  standing 
among  respectable  thinkers.  The  present-day  scientist  is  not 
only  tolerant  of  exceptions  but  takes  great  delight  in  their 
discovery.  He  gives  them  a  warm  welcome  and  feels  quite  at 
home  while  in  their  company.  In  short,  it  is  the  exception 


44  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

from  which  modern  science  gets  its  cue;  science  starts  with 
the  exception.  It  is  the  exception  that  sets  the  problem  and 
science  thrives  on  problems. 

The  problem  does  not  present  an  absolutely  new  experi- 
ence. If  it  did,  there  would  be  no  meaning  whatever  in  the 
experience,  and  as  such,  it  would  not  constitute  a  problem.  It 
might  then  be  a  puzzle  but  not  a  problem.  The  exception  is 
not  entirely  new;  it  is  novel,  i.  e.,  it  presents  something  that 
is  old  together  with  something  that  is  new.  It  is  relatively 
new  but  not  wholly  so.  The  old  saying  that  "there  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun"  is  true  or  false  according  to  the  way  in 
which  we  interpret  the  word  "new."  If  we  mean  by  it  that 
nothing  new  ever  happens,  it  is  false,  but  if  we  mean  that  the 
new  is  never  entirely  new  it  is  quite  true.  This  is  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  demands  of  a  problem  which  require  a  con- 
flict in  the  meanings  of  the  data.  An  absolutely  new  experi- 
ence would  not  fulfill  this  requirement ;  it  would  not  present  a 
conflict  of  meanings  but  would  afford  no  meaning  at  all;  it 
would  be  meaningless. 

A  correct  statement  of  the  nature  of  a  problem  enables 
us  to  solve  the  old  Socratic  mystery  of  how  it  is  possible  to 
know  anything  new.  Socrates  argued  that  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  know  anything  new  because  we  either  would  know  it 
or  we  would  not  know  it ;  if  we  knew  it,  it  would  not  be  new, 
while,  if  we  did  not  know  it,  we  should  have  no  way  of  knowing 
it  and  consequently  could  not  know  it.  This  paradoxical  situa- 
tion forced  Plato  to  resort  to  his  eternal  ideas  of  which  we 
had  knowledge  in  some  previous  existence  and  which  we  may 
re-cognize  in  this  world  as  they  embody  themselves  in  the  par- 
ticulars of  sense  and  individual  experiences.  Plato  could  not 
account  for  knowledge  upon  any  other  basis,  but  had  he  recog- 
nized the  problematic  character  of  knowledge,  the  difficulty 
would  have  disappeared  and  he  would  not  have  had  to  resort 
to  his  archetypal  ideas  in  order  to  account  for  the  possibility 
of  knowledge. 

Taking  Socrates'  own  statement  of  the  case,  the  situation 
is  even  more  hopeless  than  he  had  pictured  it  for  upon  that 
basis  it  not  only  would  be  impossible  to  know  anything  new 
but  would  be  equally  impossible  to  have  any  kind  of  knowledge, 


Pragmatism  and  Meaning  45 

for  it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  knowledge  to  get  a  start  in 
the  first  place.  We  should  have  to  endow  our  individuals  with 
some  knowledge,  otherwise  they  would  never  know  anything. 
But  our  troubles  vanish  when  we  recognize  the  fact  that  everys 
knowing  situation  involves  both  knowledge  and  ignorance;/ 
there  is  something  of  the  old  and  something  of  the  new  in- 
volved. Some  facts  are  not  questioned  while  the  meaning  of 
others  is  doubtful.  It  is  this  doubtful  character  of  the  situa- 
tion that  renders  it  a  knowledge  situation;  every  knowledge 
situation  is  therefore  a  problematic  situation;  its  meaning  is 
ambiguous;  it  involves  both  the  old  and  the  new,  the  experi- 
enced and  the  novel.  This  statement  of  the  problem  not  only 
enables  us  to  account  for  new  knowledge  (it  is  hardly  correct 
to  use  the  term  for  knowledge  always  involves  something  of 
the  new  element  in  it) ,  but  also  enables  us  to  show  how  knowl- 
edge gets  started.  It  does  not  involve  previous  knowledge  but 
it  does  involve  previous  experience.  Knowledge  presupposes 
experience  but  experience  does  not  necessarily  involve  knowl- 
edge. Knowledge  arises  out  of  a  conflict  in  experience,  the 
conflict  being  eliminated  through  the  mediation  of  intelligence. 
Experience  is  a  broader  term  than  knowledge.  Not  all  experi- 
ence contains  knowledge  but  all  knowledge  does  involve  experi- 
ence. This  view  of  the  relationship  between  knowledge  and 
experience  is  consistent  with  a  psychological  account  of  knowl- 
edge. The  "big,  blooming,  buzzing  confusion"  which  the  in- 
fant experiences  does  not  afford  meaning  but  it  is  out  of  just 
such  experiences  that  knowledge  evolves.  Angell  thinks  that 
even  this  classic  statement  of  James*  gives  the  infant  credit 
for  a  greater  power  of  discrimination  than  he  deserves. 

The  exception,  which  is  the  source  of  the  conflict,  calls 
for  interpretation;  its  meaning  must  be  discovered  in  order 
that  action  may  continue.  It  can  only  be  interpreted  in  the 
light  of  previous  experience.  This  is  the  reason  that  an  abso- 
lutely new  experience  is  unintelligible.  The  individual  has 
no  clue  as  to  the  proper  interpretation.  The  experience 
remains  an  enigma  until  he  Is- able  to  bring  something  out  of 
his  experience  to  bear  upon  the  situation.  The  experiences 
which  he  summons  for  this  purpose  constitute  the  data  for 
his  problem.  They  offer  suggestions  as  to  possible  meanings. 
The  pain  may  be  a  trivial  matter  or  it  may  be  something  that 


-iu  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

demands  expert  treatment  at  once.  The  individual  consults 
a  physician  for  he  has  at  his  command  a  more  specialized 
experience.  His  diagnosis  stands  a  greater  possibility  of 
being  correct.  He  pronounces  it  an  attack  of  appendicitis. 
The  meaning  for  the  physician  is  apparent  whereas  for  the 
patient  it  was  ambiguous.  But  it  has  not  always  been  clear 
to  the  physician — and  for  some  it  is  not  so  yet — but  has  only 
become  so  by  means  of  careful  inquiry.  Suppose  that  the  case 
were  not  so  easily  diagnosed  and  that  it  constituted  an  excep- 
tion in  the  experience  of  the  physician.  He  might  analyze  it  to 
his  best  ability  or  consult  one  whose  experience  is  broader 
and  who  consequently  has  more  data  for  a  more  satisfactory, 
diagnosis.  If  the  proper  inferences  are  drawn,  and  the 
patient  recovers,  the  case  is  then  confirmatory  evidence  of  a 
correct  diagnosis,  It  may  be  used  as  data  for  the  diagnoses  of 
similar  cases  in  the  future. 

The  distinction  between  data  and  .meaning  is  a~£ unction al 
one;  it  is  Hue  to  the  temporal  character  of  the  judgmen 
A  judgment  is  not  a  static  proposition;  it  is  an  active 
process.  ("Active"  is  superfluous  for  all  processes  are  active.) 
A  judgment  is  a  living  affair.  It  does  not  represent  a  dead 
situation  but  is  made  with  reference  to  future  conduct.  A 
dead  judgment  is  no  judgment  at  all.  All  judgments  are  alive ; 
they  represent  an  incomplete  situation;2  they  stand  for  a  goal 
not  yet  attained.  There  is  something  at  stake  in  a  judg- 
ment; there  is  a  problem  to  be  solved,  an  end  to  be  achieved, 
an  ideal  as  yet  unrealized.  It  is  this  doubtful  element  in 
the  judgment  that  involves  a  temporal  process.  Were  judg- 
ment a  mere  observation,  a  ready-made  perception,  the  tem- 
poral element  would  not  be  necessary.  But  judgment  is  not 
perception;  a  judgment  may  start  with  a  perception  but 
neither  the  act  of  perceiving  nor  the  thing  perceived  consti- 
tutes the  judgment.  Perceptions  form  the  data,  the  subject  of 
the  judgment  but  do  not  constitute  a  judgment.  If  we  knew 
the  meaning  of  a  percept,  we  should  not  judge  about  it;  we 
should  act  with  reference  to  it.  It  is  the  doubtful  meaning 
that  makes  a  judgment  a  temporal  process. 

The  data  set  the  problem  while  the  meaning  offers  a  solu- 


1.  Cf.  Dewey:  Essays  in  Experimental  Logic,  pages  1  to  8. 

2.  Cf.     Essays  in  Experimental  Logic,  p.   337  ff. 


Pragmatism^  and  Meaning  $ 

lion;  the  former  form  the  subject,  the  latter  the  predicate 
of  any  judgment.  The  data  represent  that  part  of  the  situ- 
ation which  is  not  questioned  while  the  predicate  stands  for 
the  doubtful  part  of  the  situation.  In  every  judgmental  situ- 
ation there  are  certain  facts  which  are  not  questioned  and 
certain  facts  which  are  questioned.  (Here  again,  it  is  not 
technically  correct  to  speak  of  "facts  being  questioned.")  A 
fact  which  is  questioned  is  no  longer  a  fact;  it  becomes  a 
'meaning.  In  order  for  a  fact  to  be  a  fact  its  meaning  must 
not  be  questioned.  A  fact  is  a  fact  only. when  it  functions  as  ^ 
such,  i.  6.,  when  its  meaning  is  not  questioned.1  the  pain  is 
a  fact.  As  such  it  .is  not  questioned;  it  is  a  datum  and  con- 
stitutes the  subject  of  a  judgment  about  the  fact.  Its  trivial- 
ity or  its  severity  are  possible  meanings ;  they  are  hypotheses 
formed  with  reference  to  future  action  concerning  the  pain. 
They  stand  for  the  doubtful  or  problematic  character  of  the 
situation,  are  meanings  and  form  the  predicate  of  a  judgment. 
The  facts  are  not  just  given;  they  represent  the  results  of 
previous  inquiries.  They  are  data  which  may  be  brought  to 
bear  upon  a  given  situation.  They  are  past  experiences  which 
seem  most  significant  for  purposes  of  inference;  they  suggest 
meanings.  The  meanings  are  not  fixed,  absolute  entities.  They 
are  suggestions  or  ideas,  hypotheses  upon  which  we  may  act. 
They  point  toward  the  completed  situation;  they  indicate  a 
line  of  action.  When  a  meaning  is  verified  it  is  no  longer  a 
meaning.  It  becomes  a  fact  and  remains  in  that  status  until 
again  questioned  and  is  proved  false.  Facts  become  ideas  and 
ideas  become  facts.  A  fact  is  not  always  a  fact,  neither  is 
an  idea  always  an  idea..  A  thing  is  either  fact  or  idea  ac- 
cording to  the  manner  in  which  it  functions  in  a  judgment,  j 
The  process  of  judging  involves  a  constant  oscillation  between 
fact  and  idea  or  data  and  meaning.  This  is  a  process  through 
which  reality  is  being  made.  Our  world  is  constantly  being 
reconstructed  by  means  of  the  judging  process.  The  process 
of  going  from  data  to  meaning  and  back  to  data  again,  the 
process  which  constitutes  a  complete  act  of  thought,  is  not 
the  only  way  of  reshaping  the  world  and  reorganizing  society.  , 
It  is  the  most  effective  way;  it  is  the  intelligent  method  for 
progress. 

1.     Cf.     Essays  in  Experimental   Lopric.  Ch.  IV. 


48  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 


An  idea  is  a  meaning;  it  is  not  an  image  of  reality  but 
a  sign  for  the  bringing  about  of  a  reality.  It  is  not  a  picture 
of  a  finished  situation  but  an  indicator  of  a  future  experience, 
it  is  a  guide,  an  index  to  a  line  of  conduct  which  will  prove 
most  fruitful  in  reconstructing  a  given  situation.  The 
hypothesis1  is  formed  with  reference  to  the  solution  of  the 
problem.  It  is  that  idea  which  seems  most  significant,  which 
appears  as  having  the  greatest  probability  of  bringing  about 
the  desired  situation.  The  hypothesis  is  that  meaning  that 
can  give  the  best  account  of  itself,  has  most  in  its  favor  and 
looks  best.  It  is  one  that  past  experience  leads  one  to  think 
may  be  trusted;  it  not  only  stands  square  on  the  books  but 
has  a  balance  in  its  favor.  The  idea  that  becomes  the 
hypothesis  can  get  credit ;  it  has  a  respectable  standing  in  the 
community  which  constitutes  our  problematic  situation. 

A  meaning  is  a  sign,  an  index ;  it  points  toward  that  which 
we  should  expect  to  find  should  we  act  upon  its  suggestion. 
The  logical  value  of  an  idea  is  its  carrying  power,  i.  e.  its 
ability  to  lead  to  a  desirable  conclusion.  When  an  idea  proper- 
ly performs  this  function,  it  is  called  a  "true"  idea.  It  is 
true  because  it  does  the  work  that  it  was  intended  to  do.  When 
it  fails  as  a  guide,  it  is  false;  it  will  not  produce  the  conse- 
quences which  the  situation  demands  for  a  satisfactory  solu- 
tion. Ideas,  as  such,  are  neither  true  nor  false ;  they  become 
such  according  to  the  way  they  work  within  a  given  situation. 

When  we  use  such  terms  as  "satisfy,"  "work,"  "fulfill  de- 
sires," "meet  a  need,"  "bring  us  what  we  want,"  etc.,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  they  are  always  with  reference  to  the  prob- 
lem at  hand.  It  is  not  a  question  as  to  whether  or  not  they 
bring  a  certain  amount  of  emotional  satisfaction  or  bring  you 
what  you  might  like  to  have.  Thus  if  you  are  ill  and  learn  that 
you  have  an  incurable  disease,  there  is  nothing  very  satisfy- 
ing about  it  unless  you  happen  to  be  one  of  those  who  takes 
great  delight  in  being  ill.  Your  problem  was  not  that  of 
finding  something  satisfying  in  general  but  that  of  learning 
the  nature  of  your  illness.  The  disease,  no  matter  how  painful 
it  may  be  to  you,  satisfies  the  demands  of  the  problem.  It  is 
in  this  sense  that  an  idea  is  true  and  not  in  some  silly,  senti- 


1.     Cf.  ibid,  Ch.  VIII. 


Pragmatism  and  Meaning  49 

mental  satisfaction  as  some  of  the  critics  of  pragmatism  have 
claimed. 

A  recent  international  situation  presents  an  illustration 
of  the  manner  in  which  ideas  work.  The  peace  treaty  was  a 
hypothesis.  Judging  by  the  severity  of  its  exactions,  it  was 
formulated  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  Germany.  If  this 
had  been  the  aim  of  the  war,  such  a  treaty  might  have  been 
desirable.  If  carried  out  it  probably  would  lead  to  that  end. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  our  aim  was  to  bring  about  a  moral 
standard  among  nations  and  effect  a  treaty  that  would  as- 
sure us  of  a  permanent  peace,  its  desirability  is  more  doubt- 
ful. The  desirability  of  the  treaty,  the  truth  or  falsity  of 
the  hypotheses  involved  in  it  depended  upon  whether  or  not 
we  wished  to  continue  to  live  in  a  nationalistic  jungle  or 
whether  we  preferred  to  move  on  to  a  civilized  international- 
ism. If  we  desired  peace  but  acted  upon  some  of  the  hypo- 
theses expressed  in  the  treaty,  the  ideas  were  likely  to  prove 
false.  Past  experience  should  have  told  us  that  we  had  not 
selected  significant  ideas  for  our  purpose.  If  we  wanted  re- 
venge the  terms  were  very  satisfying  but  if  we  were  working 
for  a  new  era,  they  were  not  the  ones  we  should  have  wanted. 
Those  who  were  moved  by  hatred  might  have  been  willing  to 
admit  that  less  stringent  demands  would  have  been  better  for 
bringing  about  an  effective  League  of  Nations  and  yet  not 
have  found  quite  the  amount  of  emotional  satisfaction  that 
.they  did  in  the  actual  terms.  Their  amount  of  mere  emotional 
satisfaction  would  have  depended  upon  their  desire  for  re- 
venge on  the  one  hand  and  their  enthusiasm  for  a  new  state 
of  affairs  on  the  other.  It  would  not  have  affected  the  truth 
or  falsity  of  the  ideas  expressed  in  the  treaty  in  the  least. 
Their  truth  or  falsity  was  with  reference  to  their  ability  to 
lead  to  a  better  situation,  provided  that  was  what  he  wanted. 

When  an  hypothesis  is  acted  upon  and  brings  you  what  , 
you  want,  it  is  no  longer  an  idea  but  becomes  a  fact.  In  every 
problematic  situation  our  meanings  are  ambiguous.  There  is 
an  hypothesis  on  trial,  a  meaning  that  is  doubtful,  a  fact 
that  is  questioned.  If  this  were  not  the  case  we  should  have  no 
problem  at  all  but  should  simply  be  living  in  a  world  and  con- 
duct would  take  place  without  thinking.  As  Prof.  Mead  hap- 
pily expressed  it.  "We  should  lose  our  minds  if  it  were  not 


50  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

for  our  problems."  Mind  appears  when  there  is  a  problem  to 
be  solved.1  Those  who  are  about  to  give  up  in  despair  because 
of  their  problems  may  find  some  consolation  in  this  viewpoint. 
A  practical  illustration  is  familiar  to  all.  We  need  only 
observe  one  who  has  lost  all  ambition  and  who  is  perfectly 
satisfied  with  his  lot  and  existence.  He  has  no  aspirations 
and  consequently  no  problems  to  be  solved ;  he  has  no  occasion 
for  thinking.  His  brain  is  proportionately  small — so  far  as 
appearances  are  concerned  at  any  rate  and  appearance  seems 
to  be  worth  more  than  reality  in  this  case.  Physiologically 
the  brain  may  be  of  normal  size  but  unless  it  functions  in  the 
inferential  capacity,  we  are  quite  right  in  saying  that  "he  has 
no  mind."*  In  order  for  a  mind  to  be  a  mind  it  must  func- 
tion as  such;  it  must  infer  meanings;  it  must  respond  to 
problematic  situations. 

With  a  number  of  ideas  before  us,  our  problem  becomes 
that  of  selecting  or  finding  out  what  meanings  are  most  signifi- 
cant for  our  purpose.  The  problem  jtself  suggests  th£  mean- 
ings; the  purpose  of  the  individual  in  whose  experience  the 
problem  arises  will  determine  what  ideas  will  be  suggested.2 
If  we  all  had  the  same  experiences,  certain  meanings  would  be 
no  more  significant  to  one  than  to  another.  It  is  because  our 
experience  is  limited  that  we  consult  a  physician  or  seek  ad- 
vice from  the  specialist.  These  people  have  at  their  command 
a  system  of  meanings  from  which  they  may  select  those  which 
previous  experience  in  similar  situations  leads  them  to  be- 
lieve will  prove  most  useful  in  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
The  expert  has  had  more  experience  with  problems  which 
come  within  his  work;  he  stands  a  greater  probability  of  se- 
lecting the  most  significant  meanings.  A  science  is  an  organ- 
ized system  of  meanings  for  purposes  of  control.  It  has  selected 
those  meanings  which  have  proved  most  useful  in  guiding 
conduct  with  reference  to  the  problems  in  which  it  is  especial- 
ly interested;  it  may,  whenever  the  occasion  demands,  bring 
to  bear  this  organized  body  of  knowledge  as  data  upon  any 
problematic  situation  which  happens  to  confront  it. 


1.  Cf.    C.    H.    Mead:     Definition    of   the    Psychical    in    University    of    Chicago   Decennial 
Publications. 

2.  Cf.  Dewey;  How  We   Think.   Ch.   IX. 

*The  discussion  refers  to  logical  mind  as  vs.  other  aspects  of  mind. 


Pragmatism  and  Meaning  51 

In  order  to  determine  the  hypothesis  which  is  likely  to  be 
most  useful,  we  must  bring  sufficient  data  to  bear  upon  the 
problem.  The  willingness  to  do  this  as  over  against  the  at- 
titude of  the  individual  wrho  never  goes  beyond  his  own  nose, 
determines  whether  or  not  the  attitude  is  scientific.  The 
patience  of  the  scientist  in  collecting  and  examining  his  data 
has  become  almost  proverbial.  The  expert  is  he  who  is  scien- 
tific in  his  attitude  toward  a  problem.  Compare  the  patience 
of  a  Darwin  or  a  Newton  who  would  not  make  their  generali- 
zations until  they  had  collected  a  tremendous  body  of  evidence 
with  a  "Peace  Conference"  which  assembled  and  refused  to 
hear  the  other  side's  viewpoint.  It  did  not  seek  sufficient 
data  to  offer  satisfactory  solutions  of  the  problems  before  it. 
Their  inferences  could  only  be  drawn  from  a  very  limited 
amount  of  data.  In  excluding  the  vanquished  from  the  confer- 
ence they  had  willfully  restricted  their  data  and  yet  posed 
as  experts!*  The  meanings  they  placed  in  the  treaty  may 
have  been  significant  from  the  data  they  had  before  them  but 
in  arbitrarily  restricting  their  data  they  had  precluded  the 
possibility  of  reaching  the  most  significant  hypotheses  for  a 
satisfactory  solution  of  the  problems  before  them. 

As  another  illustration  of  how  ideas  must  work1  in  order 
to  be  true,  let  us  take  the  case  of  the  small  boy  who  has  lost 
his  cap.  He  knows  he  had  it  when  he  was  in  the  house  and 
insists  that  it  must  be  some  place  in  there.  He  searches  from 
cellar  to  garret  but  fails  to  find  his  cap.  He  gives  up  the 
quest  as  a  "bad  job"  but  later  accidentally  stumbles  upon  his 
cap  while  playing  in  the  back  yard.  He  has  found  the  object 
for  which  he  was  looking  but  it  has  not  been  because  of  acting 
upon  the  idea  which  he  thought  would  bring  him  the  results 
that  he  was  after.  The  finding  takes  place  outside  of  a  logical 
situation.  The  hypothesis  upon  which  he  acted  was  false  be- 
cause it  did  not  lead  him  to  his  cap.  Suppose,  however,  that 
he  believes  he  left  it  in  the  dining  room  but  finds  it  in  the 
pantry ;  his  idea  would  be  false  unless  he  abandons  the  dining- 
room  hypothesis  in  favor  of  the  pantry  one  in  the  course  of  his 
search  and  is  acting  upon  that  idea  when  he  finds  his  cap ;  in 

1.     Cf.   Pragmatism  and   Its   Critics,   Ch.   V. 

"The  writer  holds  Mr.  Wilson  in  no  way  responsible  for  this  situation.     In  fact,  he  is  of 

the  opinion  that  the  treaty  would  have  been   still  blacker   in   its  contour  had  it  not 

been  for  the  President's  presence  at  the  conference. 


52  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

this  case  the  idea  is  true.  The  illustration  in  the  latter  in- 
stance would  also  show  the  abandonment  of  one  hypothesis  in 
favor  of  another. 

When  an  idea  does  lead  to  the  satisfactory  solution  of  a 
problem,  there  is  a  correspondence  of  fact  and  idea.  This 
correspondence,  however,  is  not  a  structural  but  a  functional 
one;  it  is  not  a  correspondence  of  an  objective  fact  with  a 
subjective  idea  but  is  the  kind  of  a  correspondence  that  takes 
place  when  the  idea  brings  us  into  the  presence  of  the  object 
which  we  believed  it  would  when  we  acted  upon  that  idea.  It 
is  not  a  pictorial  but  a  practical  correspondence  that  takes 
place.  The  idea  does  not  represent  a  reality;  it  leads  to  a 
reality.  It  is  not  an  image  of  an  objective  world  but  a  tool 
for  the  purpose  of  guiding  conduct;  it  is  not  a  mere  subjective 
state  but  an  instrument  of  control. 

Thus  far  in  our  discussion  we  have  been  considering  only 
the  me^Lmn^ofj.deas.  Let  us  now  see  what  we  mean  by  the 
meajmgj)£  an  object.  An  object  has  meaning  for  us  as  we 
respond  to  it;  we  see  objects  in  terms  of  response.  Each  ob- 
ject has  a  mode  of  response  for  us  and  we  get  meaning  out 
of  it  in  so  far  as  we  can  respond  to  it.  Tables,  chairs,  pencils, 
books,  caps,  clothing  and  people  all  have  a  definite  meaning 
for  us  because  we  recognize  a  familiar  mode  of  response  in 
them.  We  see  each  in  terms  of  the  motor  reactions  we  make 
with  reference  to  them.  We  react  differently  towards  a  cow 
than  we  do  towards  an  automobile.  The  difference  in  the 
meaning  of  the  two  objects  is  in  the  kind  of  reactions  we  make 
with  reference  to  them. 

If  we  always  knew  how  to  respond  to  an  object  we  should 
have  no  problems.  It  is  because  we  do  not  know  how  to  react 
to  an  object,  how  to  respond  to  a  certain  situation  that  gives 
rise  to  the  problem.  We  do  not  know  what  kind  of  conduct  to 
pursue  with  reference  to  the  object;  we  are  in  doubt  as  to 
how  to  respond  to  it.  Hence  its  meaning  is  not  clear.  A 
thing  has  no  meaning  because  we  have  no  experience  which 
interprets  it,  at  least  for  the  time  being.  It  begins  to  have 
meaning  when  we  detect  somewhat  of  a  familiar  motor  ad- 
justment to  it.  It  then  becomes  an  object.  We  do  not  re- 
spond to  things  but  to  objects.  A  thing  becomes  an  object 
when  we  respond  to  it  and  an  object  has  meaning  for  us  in 


Pragmatism  and  Meaning  53 

so  far  as  we  know  how  to  respond  to  it.  An  entirely  new  ob- 
ject would  not  be  an  object  at  all;  it  would  be  a  thing  and 
would  possess  no  meaning.  In  so  far  as  an  object  is  a 
thing,  L  e.,  to  the  extent  that  its  meaning  is  undetermined  it 
belongs  to  the  realm  of  "brute"  existence.  To  the  extent 
that  we  are  unable  to  respond  to  an  object  it  is  brute  and  with- 
out meaning.  Things  are  bi*ute  but  objects  have  meaning. 
A  problematic  situation  in  which  thinking  occurs  involves 
both  a  thing  and  an  object,  a  partially  brute  existence  and  a 
partially  meaningful  object.  In  so  far  as  the  response  is  un- 
certain, the  meaning  of  the  object  is  ambiguous  and  it  is  a 
brute  existence 

If  we  all  knew  the  meanings  of  different  objects  equally 
well  we  should  have  no  need  of  each  others'  experiences.  It 
is  because  the  objects  themselves  are  complex  and  need  to 
be  studied  that  we  need  our  experts  and  specialists.  The 
more  these  objects  are  studied  the  more  meaning  do  they  pos- 
sess. An  object  is  anything  to  which  we  respond.  Our  in- 
terests are  determined  by  our  objects  and  vice  versa.  The 
purpose  of  an  education  is  that  of  bringing  before  an  indi- 
vidual, many  different  interests  so  that  he  may  know  for  what 
he  is  best  adapted,  know  to  what  interests  he  will  respond 
best.  To  say  that  we  all  live  in  the  same  world  is  absurd. 
We  do  not  live  in  a  bare  metaphysical  world  but  in  our  world 
of  meanings  and  these  meanings  are  determined  by  our  ob- 
jects of  interest.  Not  all  experiences  are  equally  valuable. 
It  is  the  .function- of  education  to  select  those  experiences 
v.hich  are  found  most  useful,  to  direct  interests  in  fruitful 
objects  and  transmit  these  meanings  from  one  generation  to 
another.1  In  a  complex  society  such  as  a  modern  civilized 
state,  an  individual  could  not  meet  the  demands  made  upon  him 
by  modern  life,  were  it  not  possible  to  bring  him  in  contact 
with  a  large  body  of  meanings  through  our  school  systems. 

As  to  whether  or  not  the  meaning  is  in  the  object  or  the 
subject,  it  depends  upon  the  phase  of  the  logical  process  from 
which  we  view  it.  Without  experience  there  certainly  would 
be  no  meaning  in  an  object.  So  long  as  we  react  directly  toward 
an  object  the  meaning  is  in  the  object  but  when  we  are  in 


1.     Cf.  Dewey :    Democracy  and  Education. 


54  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

doubt  as  to  how  to  respond  to  it  the  meaning  is  subjective. 
It  becomes  objective  when  the  hypothesis  is  verified.  Meaning 
becomes  objective  through  action.  If  we  consider  the  point 
at  which  the  problem  arises,  the  meaning  is  subjective;  while 
in  its  hypothetical  stage  it  is  also  subjective.  When  an  idea 
is  acted  upon  and  it  works  the  meaning  is  then  in  the  object. 
If  we  are  viewing  the  matter  from  the  point  at  which  solution 
takes  place,  the  meaning  is  in  the  object.  Hypotheses  which 
are  never  verified  are  subjective.  When  outside  a  logical 
situation  meanings  are  objective.  They  are  either  subjective 
or  objective  according  to  the  stage  of  the  process  from  which 
we  view  them  To  attempt  to  say  that  there  is  meaning  apart 
from  this  process  is  fallacious.  Meaning  arises  in  the  process 
of  experience  and  to  attempt  to  locate  it  in  a  particular  phase 
of  this  process  is  merely  an  abstraction  and  false.  There  is 
meaning  in  an  object  when  outside  of  a  logical  situation  be- 
cause of  previous  experience  and  previous  inquiries.  Trans- 
lated into  terms  of  external  and  internal  relations,  we  may  say 
that  relations  are  external  where  the  problem  arises  and  while 
it  is  under  investigation;  they  are  internal  when  we  have  no 
problem  and  at  the  point  of  solution.  Meanings  are  internal 
at  the  non-reflective  level,  are  external  while  problematic  and 
again  become  internal  at  the  point  of  reconstruction. 

We  started  with  the  position  that  instrumentalism  is  the 
tool  by  means  of  which  the  pragmatist  defends  the  thesis  of 
the  relativity  of  truth,  or  that  truth  is  relative  to  conditions 
and  circumstances,  these  being  determined  by  the  needs  of 
the  problem  under  investigation.  We  then  traced  the  stages 
of  reflective  thought,  showing  the  point  at  which  truth  arises, 
that  the  distinction  between  truth  and  error  appears  when 
thought  reaches  its  culmination  either  upon  the  verification  or 
the  abandonment  of  a  hypothesis  through  action.  We  learned 
that  an  idea  has  meaning  as  it  leads  toward  an  object  and 
that  an  object  has  its  meaning  in  terms  of  the  response  and 
motor  adjustments  that  it  calls  forth.  Meaning  arises  in  a 
total  process  of  experience  and  to  attempt  to  locate  it  without 
reference  to  the  process  which  gives  rise  to  it  is  fallacious. 

We  have  examined  the  place  of  meaning  in  both  prag- 
matism and  realism  and  are  now  ready  for  a  comparative 
valuation  of  the  two  positions. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Comparative  Valuation 

The  present  thesis  is  that  the  realist  must  face  the  prag- 
matist  on  the  issue  of  meaning.  That  things  exist  apart  from 
their  being  known  in  the  sense  that  the  realist  uses  the 
term,  the  pragmatist  is  perfectly  willing  to  admit.  Indeed, 
he  never  found  it  worth  while  questioning  the  fact.  He  con- 
siders Samuel  Johnson's  refutation  of  Bishop  Berkeley 
sufficient  without  wasting  perfectly  good  time  and  energy 
erecting  such  a  majestic  logical  structure  in  support  of  it. 
Prof.  Dewey  says : 

'The  position  taken  in  the  essays  is  frankly  realistic  in1 
acknowledging  that  certain  brute  existences,*  detected  or  laid 
bare  by  thinking  but  in  no  way  constituted  out  of  thought  or 
any  mental  process,  set  every  problem  for  reflection  and  hence 
serve  to  test  its  otherwise  merely  speculative  results.  It  is 
simply  insisted  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  these  brute  existences 
are  equivalent  neither  to  the  objective  content  of  the  situa- 
tions, technological  or  artistic  or  social,  in  which  thinking 
originates,  nor  to  the  things  to  be  known — of  the  objects  of 
knowledge. 

That  there  is  an  external  world  the  pragmatist  has  never 
questioned.  He  is  amused  that  anyone  should  ever  doubt  the 
fact  and  why  make  so  much  ado  about  it?  That  this  world  of 
"brute  existences"  has  any  meaning  the  pragmatist  disputes 
and,  furthermore,  challenges  the  realist  to  show  that  it  has. 
The  pragmatist  is  interested  in  a  world  of  meanings,  the 
world  in  which  we  live.  A  world  that  just  everlastingly  is 
simply  does  not  interest  him  in  the  least.  He  cannot  get  up 
any  enthusiasm  for  it  and  who  can  blame  him  ?  He  is  no  more 
interested  in  such  a  world  than  he  is  in  Kant's  things-in- 
themselves.  It  has  no  meaning  for  him  and  why  should  he 
bother  his  head  about  it?  When  the  realist  insists  that  ob- 
jective propositions  have  any  meaning  apart  from  the  process 
of  experience  the  pragmatist  must  part  company  with  him. 

1.     Essays   in   Experimental   Logic,  p.  35. 
'Italics   mine. 


56  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

That  there  are  brute  existences,  the  pragmatist  does  not  ques- 
tion ;  as  such  he  is  not  interested  in  them.  His  problem  is  that 
of  determining  the  meaning  of  such  existences  so  that  they 
become  objects. 

We^  have  seen  that  propositions  constitute  our  data  from 
the  realistic  viewpoint.  They  not  only  give  us  our  data  but 
they  also  furnish  us  with  meanings.  We  observe  the  meaning 
in  the  proposition.  Propositions  are  derived  either  from 
"facts  of  sense  or  the  laws  of  logic."1  Here  Mr.  Russell  ex- 
plicitly states  that  the  laws  of  logic  constitute  our  scientific 
data  but  when  he  is  accused  of  having  done  so  by  Prof.  Dewey, 
he  denies  it  on  the  ground  that  his  data  are  derived  from 
epistemological  sources,2  epistemology  here  representing  a 
"cross"  between  logic  and  psychology.  Neither  logic  nor 
psychology  furnishes  us  with  data.  Just  how  Mr.  Russell  is 
to  reconcile  this  with  the  fact  that  we  have  knowledge  of 
propositions  only  and  that  it  is  logic  that  deals  with  proposi- 
tions,3 we  are  left  somewhat  in  the  dark. 

After  we  question  everything  that  is  possible  there  will 
still  be  left  a  residuum  which  is  unquestioned ;  this  residuum 
constitutes  our  "hard"  data.4  Mr.  Russell  admits  that  these 
hard  data  vary  with  different  individuals  and  that  they  vary 
with  the  same  individual  under  different  conditions  and  cir- 
cumstances, with  different  periods  of  his  development.  In  so 
admitting  it  would  seem  that  he  had  let  the  realistic  cat  out 
of  the  bag  but  he  is  entirely  unconscious  of  the  fact  and  still 
insists  that  there  are  certain  "logical  primitives."  As  Prof. 
Dewey  remarks  in  another  connection  that  "when  the  realist 
lets  the  nose  of  the  idealistic  camel  into  the  tent,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  camel  comes  in  and  swallows  up  the  tent," 
so  when  Mr.  Russell  so  gracefully  opens  the  door  for 
psychology,  he  need  not  be  surprised  that  psychology  comes 
in  and  robs  him  of  his  independent  logic. 

The  realistic  position  seems  quite  plausible  until  we  be- 
gin to  put  some  content  into  it.  When  we  try  to  put  any  mean- 
ing into  our  "propositions,"  "facts,"  "system,"  "logical  move- 
ment," etc.,  we  begin  to  see  that  they  are  as  blind  and  empty 

1.  Scientific  Method  in   Philosophy,  p.  72. 

2.  Cf.  Journal  of  Phil.,  Psych,  and  Sc.  Methods.     Vol.  XVI,  No.  1,  pp.  6-14. 

3.  Cf.   Scientific   Method   in    Philosophy,   p.   57. 

4.  Cf.   Scientific  Method  in   Philosophy,  p.   70,  ff. 


Comparative  Valuation  57 

as  Kant's  categorical  imperative  until  we  introduce  the  human 
element,  connect  them  up  with  some  human  purpose.  Even 
our  axioms  and  postulates  are  not  fixed  until  we  have  a  prob- 
lem of  some  sort  that  calls  for  a  solution.  Mr.  Russell  himself 
admits  that  the  hardest  of  our  hard  data  change  with  condi- 
tions and  circumstances.  What  does  this  mean  but  that  our 
data  become  hard  writh  reference  to  the  problem  at-hand?  In 
every  problem  there  always  are  facts  which  remain  unques- 
tioned and  Mr.  Russell  is  perfectly  correct  in  maintaining  that 
there  is  a  residuum  that  remains  unquestioned.  This  resid- 
uum does  function  as  hard  data  but  this  is  not  the  sense  in 
which  he  is  using  the  term.  His  conception  of  data  is  not  a 
functional  but  a  structural  one;  data  are  just  given.  Are  the 
hard  data  of  the  physicist  the  same  as  those  of  the  mediaeval 
theologian  ?  And  are  the  axioms  and  postulates  of  the  present- 
day  progressive  theologue  those  of  the  modern  catholic 
churchman  ?  Of  course  they  differ,  as  Mr.  Russell  would  admit, 
but  he  fails  to  see  that  such  an  admission  carries  with  it  the 
recognition  that  his  system  of  propositions  cannot  even  get 
started  without  some  human  motive  or  purpose. 

If  our  system  cannot  even  get  a  start  without  reference  to 
purposes  of  individuals,  why  expect  that  it  should  be  able  to 
maintain  itself  even  though  we  grant  it  its  initial  movement? 
Taking  a  cross-section  of  the  world  today  we  should  be  able  to 
deduce  the  course  of  human  activities  for  the  next  century 
from  the  propositions  that  are  now  existing,  provided  that  we 
could  only  discover  a  sufficient  number  of  them.  There  would 
be  nothing  logically  impossible  about  such  a  method ;  the  only 
thing  that  prevents  our  being  able  to  do  this  is  the  limited 
number  of  propositions  before  us.  But  if  we  could  just  em- 
pirically observe  and  discover  a  large  enough  number  of  these 
propositions,  we  should  be  able  to  predict  the  course  of  events 
with  logical  certainty.  The  mediaeval  member  of  society  took 
just  this  attitude,  the  "God's  in  His  heavens  all's  well  with  the 
world"  attitude ;  he  left  it  to  the  objective  system  of  proposi- 
tions to  work  out  the  salvation  of  the  world,  and  we  know 
how  well  he  succeeded  in  bettering  his  lot  and  at  what  a  tre- 
mendous cost  the  little  progress  that  was  made  was  made  at. 
Our  plutocrats  and  our  "stand-patters"  would  probably  be  only 


58  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

too  glad  if  our  labor  organizations  and  social  reformers  of 
various  sorts  would  only  let  this  objective  system  of  proposi- 
tions lead  to  its  own  logical  outcome.  But  the  world  is  too 
much  awake  to  revert  to  this  method  again.  We  know  that  if 
a  better  day  for  society  is  ever  going  to  come  it  will  only  be 
as  human  efforts  put  the  implications  into  the  system.  The 
League  of  Nations  did  not  come  as  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
war  and  will  only  become  effective  as  we  get  behind  it  and  so 
make  it.  It  is  not  here  by  means  of  a  system  of  propositions 
generating  it  by  means  of  their  own  logical  movement.  The 
realistic  propositions  fail  to  take  account  of  the  function  of 
intelligence  in  reshaping  and  remolding,  not  only  the  form  of, 
but  the  course  which  propositions  may  take.  They  assume  that 
intelligence  does  and  can  do  nothing  in  the  way  of  directing 
and  controlling  propositions,  a  perfectly  unwarrantable  as- 
sumption in  the  light  of  modern  science. 

If  the  realist  is  unable  to  introduce  meaning  into  his 
system  at  this  point,  much  more  is  he  at  a  loss  when  he  comes 
to  distinguishing  between  true  and  false  meanings.  When 
his  premises  are  unable  to  yield  meaning  of  any  kind  it  seems 
absurd  to  speak  of  true  and  false  meanings  but  for  the  sake 
of  argument,  let  us  grant  him  this  start  but  catch  him  at  the 
other  end  of  the  process.  "Process"  is  hardly  correct  because 
for  the  realist  there  seems  to  be  no  process  about  it. 

Whether  we  identify  the  truth  with  the  real  with  Mon- 
tague, state  it  as  a  one-one  correlation  between  an  existent 
and  a  subsistent  as  Spaulding  does,  connect  it  with  a  system 
of  mutually  consistent  propositions  (a  la  Holt)  or  hold  the 
position  of  a  three-term  relation  with  Russell,  in  all  cases  the 
same  criticism  applies.  Each  theory  leads  only  to  a  corre- 
spondence theory  of  truth  and  offers  us  no  means  of  telling 
when  we  have  and  when  we  have  not  a  true  correspondence. 
The  problem  is  essentially  the  same  with  all  four  positions. 
With  Montague  it  takes  the  form  of  determining  the  real  from 
the  unreal.  To  substitute  "real  and  unreal"  for  "truth  and 
error"  hardly  offers  a  solution  to  the  problem.  Our  problem 
was  originally  that  of  finding  a  criterion  for  truth  and  error, 
and  to  translate  it  into  terms  of  the  real  and  the  unreal  with- 
out any  further  means  of  differentiation  is  merely  a  verbal 


Comparative  Valuation  59 

solution.  The  same  difficulty  presents  itself  in  Spaulding's 
statement  in  being  unable  to  tell  when  we  have  an  existent  and 
when  we  have  only  a  subsistent.  Prof.  Holt  is  in  no  better 
position  to  help  us  for  there  is  no  proposition  which  will  not 
fit  in  perfectly  consistently  with  some  system ;  it  may  be  per- 
fectly consistent  with  a  system  of  false  propositions  and  how 
are  we  to  determine  the  true  consistency  as  over  against  the 
false?  Nor  can  Mr.  Russell  come  to  our  rescue  at  this  point 
for  how  are  we  to  know  when  the  relation  really  does  relate 
the  terms  and  when  it  does  not.  All  of  our  statements  only 
end  in  so  much  verbiage  for  they  all  insist  that  truth  is  truth 
and  that  error  is  error,  but  offer  us  no  means  of  knowing  when 
we  have  the  one  and  when  we  have  the  other. 

Mr.  Russell  is  forced  to  alternate  between  the  positions  of 
making  truth  a  property  of  beliefs  and  that  of  making  it  a 
property  of  propositions.  On  the  one  hand  we  are  told  that 
were  it  not  for  beliefs  and  judgment,  as  respecting  truth  and 
falsity  the  world  would  be  neutral;  truth  and  falsity  are  ap- 
plicable to  our  beliefs  only,  but  on  the  other  hand  we  are  in- 
formed that  truth  and  falsity  are  properties  of  propositions. 
Propositions  are  either  true  or  false  regardless  of  our  asser- 
tions about  them.  A  mere  judgment  about  a  proposition  does 
not  affect  it  in  the  least ;  it  is  no  different  when  asserted  than 
v/hen  an  unassorted  proposition.  Even  our  propositions  are 
not  quite  the  objective  sort  of  an  affair  that  we  should  expect 
to  find  for  it  will  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Russell's  proposi- 
tions are  a  form  of  ivords  or  that  which  may  significantly  be 
asserted  or  denied.  These,  just  as  Prof.  Holt's  entities  which 
are  outside  a  certain  "universe  of  siscourse,"  sound  somewhat 
psychological  and  vitiate  Mr.  Russell's  logical  position.  His 
realistic  position  is  abandoned  and  his  propositions  serve  as 
sort  of  a  mediator  between  a  judgment  and  a  fact  just  as  his 
data  are  a  go-between  between  logic  and  psychology.  His 
propositions  form  sort  of  a  tertium  quid  by  means  of  which 
he  is  able  to  smuggle  in  meaning  to  otherwise  meaningless 
facts.  They  form  sort  of  a  half-way  station  between  a  sub- 
jective individual  and  an  objective  fact;  they  pose  as  com- 
pletely objective  and  it  is  only  as  we  go  back  and  examine  Mr. 
Russell's  initial  statement  about  propositions,  that  we  realize 
his  realistic  position  has  been  vitiated  from  the  start. 


60  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

Dr.  Montague  is  placed  in  the  same  predicament.  He 
confesses  that  without  our  beliefs  we  should  never  have  any 
conception  of  truth  and  error.1  These  categories  wrould  not 
apply  to  the  real  world.  Nevertheless,  we  are  told  that  error 
is  quite  as  objective  as  truth  and  that  our  beliefs  about  the 
world  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  real  world ;  they  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  truth  or  falsity  of  those  beliefs.  The  true- 
ness  or  the  falsity  of  the  beliefs  depends  upon  the  real  world. 
Thus  we  are  told  on  the  one  hand  that  these  attributes  are 
properties  of  beliefs  and  on  the  other  that  they  belong  to  things 
quite  independent  of  our  judgments  about  them. 

The  realist  prides  himself  upon  being  able  to  know  the 
real  world,  the  world  as  it  actually  is.  With  reference  to  the 
possibility  of  knowledge,  Mr.  Russell's  analysis  does  not  leave 
us  in  a  much  better  position  than  Bosanquet  left  us  at  the 
close  of  his  discussion  of  judgment.  Bosanquet  burns  his 
bridges  behind  him  and  erects  a  new  structure  upon  which 
inference  may  safely  guide  us  to  truth  but  Mr.  Russell  is  not 
so  considerate  of  our  feelings.  He  leaves  us  in  our  "private 
worlds"2  which  refer  to  an  objective  system  of  perspectives, 
but  how  we  are  to  know  when  our  private  perspective  truly 
corresponds  to  the  real  perspective,  we  are  never  told.  We 
may  assume  that  it  does  but  in  so  assuming  we  have  precluded 
the  possibility  for  error  and  are  consequently  left  in  no  bet- 
ter position ;  in  so  assuming  we  should  be  left  in  the  kind  of  a 
world  in  which  Bosanquet  asks  us  to  dwell  in  his  discussion 
of  inference,  a  world  without  error  and  a  world  in  which  all 
things  are  true. 

That  inferences  cannot  be  drawn  equally  well  from  all 
data,  Mr.  Russell  is  quite  right  in  observing,  but  that  his  scale 
arranged  according  to  degrees  of  vagueness  for  inferential 
purposes,  constitutes  data,3  is  quite  another  question.  How 
we  could  arrange  such  a  scale  without  reference  to  any  specific 
problem  is  a  mystery.  Facts  which  serve  as  data  in  one  situ- 
ation may  not  even  be  summoned  for  that  purpose  in  another 
situation.  While  serving  as  a  distinct  datum  in  one  situa- 
tion the  same  might  serve  as  a  vague  datum  in  another  situa- 


1.  Cf.   The  New   Realism,   pp.   252-62. 

2.  Cf.   Scientific  Method  in   Philosophy,  p.   88.  ff.,  p.   111. 

3.  Cf.  Jour,  of  Phil..   Psych,  and  Sc.  Meth.,  Vol.  XVI.  No.   1.  p.   10  ff. 


Comparative  Valuation  61 

tion,  or  the  same  fact  might  be  either  vague  or  distinct  accord- 
ing to  the  different  stages  of  the  problem's  solution.  Data 
arranged  in  an  objective  scale  similar  to  a  space-time-quality 
series  would  be  perfectly  useless  for  scientific  purposes.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  arrange  such  a  scale  in  the  first  place, 
but  granted  that  it  were  possible,  it  would  have  no  particular 
value  after  completion.  Facts  that  have  no  bearing  on  the 
problem  do  not  even  constitute  data.  A  man  has  failed  to 
pass  the  literacy  test.  This  fact  constitutes  a  datum  from 
which  inferences  may  be  drawn  concerning  him.  It  might  be- 
long to  our  class  of  distinct  data  with  reference  to  his  educa- 
tion but  might  fall  in  the  class  of  vague  data  concerning  his 
ability  as  a  mechanic.  Placing  this  fact  in  our  scale  of  data, 
how  should  we  proceed  so  as  to  know  where  to  place  it?  We 
cannot  place  it  with  reference  to  a  problem  for  then  should 
our  scale  be  vitiated  by  a  psychological  taint,  a  serious  crime 
from  the  realistic  viewpoint.  Yet  how  are  we  to  get  any  mean- 
ing into  it  without  this  taint? 

Although  the  realist  would  never  admit  it,  his  difficulties 
prove  very  similar  to  those  of  the  idealist.  We  do  not  hear  so 
much  about  the  "Whole"  in  realism  as  we  do  in  idealism  but 
his  ultimate  entities  perform  exactly  the  same  function.  The 
Whole  is  just  as  intelligible  a  concept  as  true  and  real  en- 
tities, just  as  easy  to  get  at  and  just  as  workable  as  a  method. 
Both  bring  us  to  a  correspondence*  theory  of  truth  based 
upon  the  separation  of  the  real  and  the  ideal  worlds. 
An  independent  thought  must  in  some  way  match  an  in- 
dependent reality.  Since  we  have  no  way  of  getting  at  the 
real  world,  we  can  never  know  when  such  a  correspondence 
is  effected.  The  only  way  we  can  make  the  theory  work  at  all 
is  by  denying  error,  and  by  so  doing,  we  have  only  another 
problem  on  our  hands  and  consequently  have  not  gained  anyr 
thing.  Both  realism  and  idealism  ultimately  rest  upon  the 
"aviary"  conception  of  truth  and  error.  If  our  birds  were' 
only  labeled  how  handy  it  would  be,  but  since  they  are  not, 
as  Plato  long  ago  pointed  out,  how  are  we  to  know  when  we 


•Bosanquet  objects  to  the  correspondence  theory,  holding  that  consistency  is  the  ultimate 
test.  So  long  as  he  accepts  the  Absolute  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  he  escapes  the  cor- 
respondence viewpoint.  Prof.  Holt  might  also  object  to  being  placed  in  this  class  but 
the  same  criticism  applies  for  his  consistent  system  must  match  a  neutral  order. 


62  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

have  captured  a  true  and  when  a  false  bird?1  The  outcome 
simply  shows  how  impossible  it  is  for  a  paralytic  to  get  any 
meaning  into  his  world.  From  both  the  idealistic  and  the 
realistic  accounts  of  knowledge,  one  would  never  know  that 
we  have  any  such  thing  as  muscles  or  ever  indulged  in  such 
a  useless  performance  as  acting.  Neither  the  photographic 
conception  of  the  realist,  nor  the  cinematographic  conception 
of  the  idealist  is  adequate  to  make  our  world  intelligible.  In 
a  world  without  action  we  should  be  quite  at  a  loss  to  dis- 
tinguish truth  from  error.  If  life  were  presented  as  a  mere 
panorama,  how  should  we  ever  have  any  conception  of  truth? 
Indeed  the  pictures  themselves  would  be  meaningless,  for  with- 
out having  previously  acted  with  reference  to  similar  objects, 
the  scenes  would  be  as  unintelligible  as  yiddish.  It  is  at  this 
point  that  the  pragmatist  comes  to  our  rescue  and  gives  us  a 
world  of  meaning. 

The  fallacy  of  the  realist  is  that  of  interesting  himself 
so  much  in  the  object  of  science  that  he  overlooks  the  impor- 
tance of  the  method.  True  enough,  he  does  have  a  method  but 
it  is  subordinated  to  his  object  of  interest.  It  does  not  play 
any  role  in  the  reconstruction  of  its  object.  He  does  more  or 
less  consciously  apply  the  pragmatic  method,  just  as  does 
the  idealist,  but  in  so  doing  he  is  not  consistent  with  his 
premises.  He  offers  us  a  statement  of  the  truth  but  gives 
us  no  method  for  recognizing  it  when  we  get  it.  Consequently 
he  cannot  help  us  in  a  scientific  problem,  except  in  so  far  as 
he  abandons  his  realistic  position  and  introduces  meaning  into 
his  otherwise  meaningless  world.  It  is  one  thing  to  give  a 
statement  of  what  truth  is  and  another  to  propose  a  method 
for  finding  it.  Obviously  the  statement  without  the  method 
is  worthless  for  we  never  know  when  the  facts  we  obtain 
correspond  with  our  statement.  To  say  that  truth  is  a  cor- 
respondence between  an  existent  and  a  subsistent,  or  a  rela- 
tion that  actually  holds  between  terms,  does  not  help  us  very 
much  when  we  have  no  way  of  finding  out  when  we  have  an 
existent,  or  when  the  relation  really  does  relate.  Failure  to 
provide  a  method  of  differentiation  simply  makes  the  state- 
ment false. 


1.     Cf.   A.   W.    Moore:     The   Aviary    Conception   of   Truth    and   Error    in    Jour,   of   Phil., 
Psych,  and  Sc.  Meth.,  Vol.  X,  p.  542. 


Comparative  Valuation  63 

The  realist's  reply  would  foe  that  he  has  a  method  and  a 
perfectly  good  one  at  that.  It  is  that  of  observing,  analyzing, 
measuring,  finding  the  constant  factors  and  stating  the  results 
in  terms  of  a  simple  law.1  The  position  taken  here  is  that  the 
propositions  that  he  observes,  analyzes,  and  generalizes  about 
have  no  meaning  in  his  realistic  statement  of  them.  He  can- 
not get  any  meaning  into  them  without  surreptitiously  smug- 
gling it  in  as  Mr.  Russell  does.  Prof.  Holt  would  be  unable  to 
recognize  the  kind  of  a  proposition  he  sets  forth  were  he 
confronted  with  one  for  it  would  have  no  meaning.  So  long 
as  Prof.  Spaulding  is  content  to  talk  about  things  existing 
apart  from  their  being  known,  he  can  get  quite  a  hearing, 
but  were  he  to  introduce  the  element  of  meaning  into  his 
existence  on  such  a  platform,  his  followers  and  admirers 
would  begin  to  decrease  in  number.  Prof.  Perry,  although 
a  "real"  realist,  has  given  a  most  excellent  statement  of  the 
pragmatic  attitude  toward  science.  He  says : 

"Science  both  belittles  man  and  magnifies  him.  When2 
science  puts  man  where  he  belongs  in  nature,  man  looks  very 
small  and  very  feeble.  But  what  is  this  science  that  makes  so 
free  with  man  ?  Evidently  in  some  sense  it  is  the  work  of  man 
himself.  Whatever  superiority  science  enjoys  through  the 
discomfiture  of  man  must  be  credited  to  the  scientist,  who  is, 
curiously  enough,  man.  Man  is  apparently  on  both  ends  of 
the  see-saw.  When  one  end  goes  up  the  other  goes  down; 
but  man  being  on  both  ends  is  always  on  top !  I  shall  not  at- 
tempt to  resolve  this  paradox  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  if 
the  teachings  or  doctrines  of  science  concerning  man  seriously 
diminish  his  confidence  and  self-esteem,  the  magnificent  and 
overwhelming  success  of  science  as  his  own  activity  and  his 
own  institution  have  restored  them  again/'* 

This  from  a  realist!  Who  could  ask  for  better  pragma- 
tism? Science  itself  is  quite  meaningless  until  we  recognize 
that  it  is  the  work  of  man  and  that  it  is  his  institution ;  it  is  his 
instrument  for  purposes  of  control.  This  control  is  with  refer- 
ence to  human  problems  and  human  activities.  What  meaning 
has  it  apart  from  these?  Realism  fails  us  at  the  point  of 
meaning. 

This  brings  us  to  the  crucial  point.    It  is  that  of  the  ob- 

1.  Cf.  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  Ch.  III. 

2.  Perry:     Present   Conflict  of  Ideals,  p.  45. 
"Italics   mine. 


64  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

ject  of  knowledge.  That  which  constitutes  knowledge  for 
the  realist  is  not  knowlege  at  all  for  the  pragmatist.  It  is 
either  the  results  of  previous  knowledge  processes  or  is  the 
beginning  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  for  the  realist  is  jimply 
a  matter  of  becoming  a wareT  of _a jprppositio'HTTris  immediate 
^recognition  or  perceptio^of  an  object.  Knowledge  fofTne 
pragmatist  is  the  result  of  inquiry;  the  object  of  knowledge  is 
its  objective,  i.  e.,  the  end  toward  which  thought  is  directed 
in  the  solution  of  a  problem.  Perception  is  not  knowledge  for 
the  pragmatist ;  it  sets  a  problem  for  knowledge  but  does  not 
itself  constitute  knowledge.  Knowledge  itself  is  always  the 
result  of  a  doubt-inquiry  situation ;  it  appears  as  the  resolu- 
tion of  a  problematic  situation.  Immediate  awareness  of  an 
object  is  not  knowledge  from  the  pragmatic  viewpoint. 

This  difference  in  the  conception  of  knowledge  of  the  two 
positions  will  throw  some  light  on  the  controversy  as  to 
whether  knowing  makes  any  difference  in  the  character  of 
the  object  known.  The  pragmatist  contends  that  it  does  while 
the  realist  is  equally  as  insistent  in  maintaining  that  it  does 
not.  Each  is  right  from  his  viewpoint;  it  is  the  ambiguity 
of  the  word  "knowledge"  that  has  caused  an  unnecessary 
amount  of  confusion.  If  knowledge  is  a  matter  of  simply  per- 
ceiving something  already  known,  the  realist  is  quite  right  in 
holding  that  knowledge  makes  no  difference  to  the  object 
known ;  if,  however,  knowledge  is  not  simply  a  matter  of  im- 
mediate recognition  but  is  the  result  of  an  investigation,  the 
pragmatist  is  equally  right  in  contending  that  it  does  alter 
the  character  of  the  object  known.  Knowledge  for  the  prag- 
matist is  not  a  matter  of  just  knowing;  it  is  knowing  how  to 
do  something.  An  act  of  thought  is  not  complete  until  it  has 
been  carried  out  in  action.  The  problem  remains  in  its 
hypothetical  state  until  an  idea  has  been  acted  upon,  until  an 
hypothesis  has  either  been  rejected  or  accepted.  This  again 
states  the  issue,  viz.,  that  thinking  is  not  a  matter  of  just 
watching  "wheels  go  'round"  but  that  it  is  instrumental  to 
the  control  of  conduct.  Using  thinking  in  the  former  sense, 
as  the  realist  apparently  does,  he  is  quite  right  in  maintain- 
ing that  it  makes  no  difference  in  the  nature  of  the  object 
known,  but  if  we  use  it  in  the  instrumental  function,  as  does 


Comparative  Valuation  65 

the  pragmatist,  he  is  quite  as  correct  in  contending  that  it 
does  affect  the  object. 

Suppose  you  are  suffering  from  a  severe  cold.  The 
consciousness  of  this  physical  condition  on  your  part  consti- 
tutes knowledge  from  the  standpoint  of  the  realist.  You  are 
aware  of  having  a  cold ;  this  fact  is  knowledge.  Why  call  this 
knowledge?  says  the  pragmatist.  There  is  no  thought  in- 
volved in  such  a  recognition.  This  is  simply  the  beginning  of 
a  knowledge  situation.  The  fact  that  you  are  suffering  gives 
rise  to  a  problem  as  to  how  to  act  with  reference  to  curing 
your  cold.  You  formulate  various  hypotheses  and  act  upon 
the  one  which  seems  to  you  most  likely  to  secure  the  best  re- 
sults. If  the  cold  disappears  because  of  such  action  on  your 
part,  it  is  certainly  a  different  object  than  it  was  when  you 
were  suffering  from  it.  Simply  being  aware  of  a  disagreeable 
physical  condition  does  not  alter  the  condition,  but  intelligent 
action  with  reference  to  restoring  health  certainly  does  make 
a  difference  in  the  character  of  the  object  known.  It  is  the 
becoming  aware  of  a  healthy  condition  after  having  acted  upon 
an  idea  directed  toward  the  overcoming  of  an  undesirable  con- 
dition that  constitutes  knowledge,  and  not  the  mere  apprehen- 
sion of  that  undesirable  condition.  The  object  of  knowledge 
in  this  case  is  the  curing  of  your  cold,  the  objective  toward 
which  thought  is  directed ;  it  is  not  simply  the  apprehension  of 
having  a  cold. 

The  question  now  reduces  itself  to  the  merits  of  the  re- 
spective viewpoints  in  regard  to  knowledge.  The^^faj^cx^pJ 
the  realist,  as  Prof.  Dewey  points  out,1  is  in  disregarding  the 
temporal  character  of  knowledge.  His  immediate  apprehen- 
sion he  sets  up  as  knowledge,  but  fails  to  recognize  that  even 
this  is  possible  only  because  of  previous  investigations.  The 
results  of  former  inquiries  he  sets  up  as  knowledge,  whereas 
they  constitute  data  which  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  pres- 
ent and  future  knowing  situations.  After  we  have  learned 
a  meaning  through  the  process  of  investigation,  the  realist 
turns  around  and  says  that  it  was  always  there.  He  abstracts 
meaning  from  both  phases  of  the  knowledge  process  and  then 
sets  up  his  meaning  quite  independent  of  that  process.  He 


1.     Cf.  Essays  in  Experimental  Logic,  p.  25  ff. 


66  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

fails  to  recognize  that  knowledge  is  in  the  making,  that  in 
abstracting  his  meaning,  both  from  the  non-reflective  level  and 
at  the  point  of  solution,  he  not  only  cuts  off  the  possibility  of 
further  discovery  but  makes  it  equally  impossible  for  knowl- 
edge ever  to  get  started.  We  may  disregard  the  temporal 
character  of  judgment  if  we  like,  but  in  so  doing  we  only  land 
in  the  old  Platonic  aviary  with  all  the  mysteries  of  the  Socratic 
puzzle. 

The  realist's  reply  to  this  is  that  the  pragmatist  merely 
gives  us  a  biography  as  to  how  certain  meanings  have  been  de- 
rived. The  object  itself,  together  with  its  meaning,  exists 
quite  independent  of  this  process  of  knowledge ;  it  is  in  no  way 
altered  by  this  process.  The  biography  is  all  very  interesting 
but  what  has  it  to  do  with  the  object  known?  Thus  the  Ptole- 
maic theory  in  astronomy  was  not  true  because  people  for 
centuries  believed  that  it  was  the  correct  theory  in  regard  to 
the  stellar  cosmos.  Simply  because  Copernicus  gave  us  a 
better  theory  the  real  character  of  the  heavens  was  by  no 
means  altered.  This  is  an  interesting  incident  in  the  history 
of  astronomy,  but  the  Copernican  theory,  if  true  today,  always 
has  been  true.  Our  reply  is,  that  if  truth  exists  apart  from 
this  knowledge  process,  then  must  we  abandon  all  hopes  of 
knowledge,  for  we  have  then  only  a  metaphysical  object  which 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  reach.  On  this  basis,  how  should 
we  know  that  the  Copernican  theory  is  the  true  one?  It  is 
only  as  we  associate  it  with  some  human  problem  that  we  find 
it  either  true  or  false.  Prof.  Perry  has  so  well  stated  how 
meaningless  is  our  science  except  as  we  view  it  as  the  work  of 
man  himself.  If  this  biography  of  discovery  makes  no  dif- 
ference as  to  bare  existence,  it  is  quite  essential  for  meaning, 
and  as  we  have  above  noted,  it  is  this  world  in  which  the 
pragmatist  is  interested.  To  ignore  this  biography  of  knowl- 
edge as  the  realist  does,  leaves  us  in  a  bare  metaphysical  world, 
a  world  of  mere  isness,  one  in  which  the  pragmatist  is  not  at 
all  interested.  In  short,  the  realist,  in  his  enthusiasm  over 
the  independence  of  this  bare  existence,  eliminates  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge,  thus  defeating  the  very  purpose  of  his 
thesis  of  independence.  He  arose  as  the  champion  of  this 
thesis  to  safeguard  knowledge  from  the  subjective  clutches  of 


Comparative  Valuation  67 

Berkeleyan  idealism.  In  the  defense  of  his  thesis  he  is  left 
with  a  meaningless  world,  thereby  leaving  knowledge  in  no 
better  position  than  Bishop  Berkeley  left  it.  What  a  paradox ! 
The  realist's  fundamental  thesis  has  defeated  its  own  primary 
purpose.  He  thought  it  a  crime  that  knowledge  should  modify 
the  character  of  the  object  known,  for  such  a  state  of  affairs 
would  make  all  our  efforts  to  know  the  real  character  of  things 
useless,  for  that  real  character  would  be  falsified  through  the 
knowledge  relation.  He  therefore  set  up  the  independence  of 
the  object  and  ardently  defended  it  by  his  theory  of  the  exter- 
nality of  relations.  In  so  doing  his  object  becomes  indepen- 
dent all-right  but  it  is  so  independent  that  it  becomes  impos- 
sible to  get  any  meaning  into  it.  He  is  in  a  worse  predica- 
ment than  his  friend  the  idealist.  For  the  latter,  knowledge 
becomes  fictitious,  but  for  him  it  becomes  impossible. 

If  the  idealist  is  guilty  of  the  fallacy  of  "definition  by  ini- 
tial predication,"  the  realist  is  guilty  of  a  fallacy  still  more 
grave,  viz.,  that  of  definition  by  "essential  attributes."  If  initial 
predication  could  give  us  the  essential  attributes,  it  would  not 
be  fallacious  from  the  realist's  standpoint.  It  is  so  because  it 
picks  out  a  mere  "accident"  as  an  essential.  Meanings  which 
are  entirely  irrelevant  to  the  real  character  of  the  object  are 
taken  for  its  essence.  The  pragmatist  challenges  the  realist 
to  show  the  essential  attributes  of  any  object  apart  from  some 
human  purpose.  If  he  can  do  this  then  can  he  make  good  his 
realistic  position  in  regard  to  meaning.  But  if  he  fails  then 
must  he  abandon  his  realistic  position  at  this  point.  Prof. 
Jerries'  point  that  there  is  no  essential  attribute  of  anything1 
is  apropos  in  this  connection.  Meanings  are  essential  or  non- 
essential  according  to  the  purpose  for  definition.  The  classic 
illustration  of  the  artist,  the  botanist  and  the  farmer  viewing 
a  plant  for  purposes  of  definition  shows  the  impossibility  of 
selecting  "essentials"  apart  from  the  problem  and  interest  of 
the  observer.  Prof.  James'  own  illustration  of  the  piece  of 
paper  which  may  be  used  for  purposes  of  writing,  for  starting 
a  fire,  as  a  signal,  or  as  an  aesthetic  object,  etc.,  is  another 
case  in  point.  Which  of  these  various  attributes  is  essential 
to  the  piece  of  paper?  Obviously  there  is  no  one  meaning  that 


1.     Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.   11.  p.  333. 


68  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

is  essential  apart  from  the  purpose  for  which  the  paper  is  to 
be  used.  Meanings  are  essential  or  non-essential  with  refer- 
ence to  the  interest  of  an  individual  or  the  demands  of  a  prob- 
lem. How  would  you  determine  your  essentials  apart  from 
this  purposeful  reference?  To  abstract  a  meaning  from  its 
interest  relation  and  set  it  up  as  the  eternal  essence  of  an 
object  apart  from  its  relation  is  the  fallacy  of  the  realist.  If 
the  realist  can  show  that  it  is  possible  to  define  an  object  out- 
side of  this  interest  relation,  then  his  realistic  position  holds, 
but  if  not,  it  fails  at  the  point  of  meaning. 

It  is  just  this  fallacy  of  definition  by  essential  attributes 
that  gets  in  the  way  of  progress.  Because  a  certain  meaning 
has  been  of  value  in  a  given  situation,  it  is  then  set  up  as  an 
"essential  attribute"  or  an  "inalienable  right"  of  some  kind 
which  makes  it  impossible  for  society  to  be  free  to  reconstruct 
its  own  ends.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  "natural  rights"  served 
its  purpose  at  the  time  of  the  American  Revolution  but  is  now 
in  the  way  of  governmental  legislation  for  purposes  of  con- 
trolling wealth  and  labor  conditions.  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
is  another  case  of  "necessary  foreign  policy,"  which  when 
translated  into  logical  terms,  becomes  that  of  "essential  attri- 
butes." "We  always  have  had  war  and  are  going  to  have  it," 
is  another  case  of  interfering  with  progress  by  definition. 
States  always  have  been  "beyond"  morality  in  their  relations 
with  one  another  and  consequently  must  always  so  be;  they 
would  not  be  states  if  they  were  moral  in  their  relations; 
secret  and  deceitful  diplomacy  are  the  essential  attributes  of 
states.  All  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  "politics  is 
politics"  and  why  try  to  make  them  anything  different?  It 
represents  the  attitude  of  definition  by  "essential  attributes" 
toward  life.  It  simply  blocks  all  hope  for  progress. 

The  realist  has  such  a  phobia  for  subjectivism  that  when 
the  pragmatist  says  that  knowledge  does  make  a  difference  in 
the  character  of  the  object  known  he  accuses  him  of  holding 
that  knowledge  is  constitutive  of  its  object.  Both  Prof.  Perry 
and  Prof.  Spaulding — as  well  as  Prof.  Bosanquet,  the  idealist 
— bring  this  accusation  against  the  pragmatist.1  They  evi- 


1.     Perry:     Present   Philosophical   Tendencies,   pp.    197-203. 
Spaulding:    New    Rationalism,    Ch.    XXXIII. 
Bosanquet:    Logic,  Vol.   II,   Ch.   IX. 


Comparative  Valuation  69 

dently  are  not  familiar  with  the  following  passage  from  Prof. 
Dewey  : 

"For  the  more  one  insists  that  the  antecedent  situation1 
is  constituted  by  thought,  the  more  one  has  to  wonder  why 
another  type  of  thought  is  required;  what  need  arouses  it, 
and  how  it  is  possible  for  it  to  improve  upon  the  work  of 
previous  constitutive  thought.  This  difficulty  at  once  forces 
idealists  from  a  logic  of  experience  as  it  is  completely  experi- 
enced into  a  metaphysic  of  a  purely  hypothetical  experience. 
Constitutive  thought  precedes  our  conscious  thought-opera- 
tions ;  hence  it  must  be  the  working  of  some  absolute  universal 
which,  unconsciously  to  our  reflection,  builds  up  an  organized 
world.  But  this  recourse  only  deepens  the  difficulty.  How 
does  it  happen  that  the  absolute  constitutive  and  intuitive 
Thought  does  such  a  poor  and  bungling  job  that  it  requires 
a  finite  discursive  activity  to  patch  up  its  products?  Here 
more  metaphysic  is  called  for:  The  Absolute  Reason  is  now 
supposed  to  work  under  to  limiting  conditions  of  finitude,  of 
a.  sensitive  and  temporal  organism.  The  antecedents  of  re- 
flective thought  are  not,  therefore,  determinations  of 
thought  pure  and  undefiled,  but  of  what  thought  can  do  when 
it  stoops  to  assume  the  yoke  of  change  and  of  feeling.  I  pass 
by  the  metaphysical  problem  left  unsolved  by  this  flight ;  Why 
and  how  should  a  perfect,  absolute,  complete,  finished  thought 
find  it  necessary  to  submit  to  alien,  disturbing,  and  corrupting 
conditions  in  order,  in  the  end,  to  recover  through  reflective 
thought  in  a  partial,  piecemeal,  wholly  inadequate  way  what 
it  possessed  at  the  outset  in  a  much  more  satisfactory  way?" 

Does  this  sound  as  though  the  instrumentalist  has  very 
much  use  for  constitutive  thought?  No,  the  pragmatist  does 
not  hold  that  thought  constitutes  its  object.  What  he  does  in- 
sist on  is  that  it  reconstructs  its  object.  Thought  is  regulative, 
not  constitutive ;  it  is  reconstructive,  not  constructive ;  it  is  in- 
strumental and  active,  not  passive  and  ineffective. 

Knowledge  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  realist  is  not 
only  impossible,  but  would  be  useless,  granted  that  it  were 
possible.  His  thesis  is  that  knowing  in  no  way  affects  the 
character  of  the  object  known.  If  this  be  true,  why  bother 
to  know  at  all?  Why  waste  so  much  time  and  energy  in  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge?  Knowledge  makes  no  difference  in  the 
way  things  behave;  they  would  act  the  way  they  do  whether 
known  or  not.  In  order  to  make  good  on  his  thesis  that  knowl- 


1.     Essays   in   Experimental   Logic,   pp.    131,    132. 


70  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Kealism 

edge  makes  no  difference  in  the  object  known,  the  realist  must 
admit  the  futility  of  science  and  the  uselessness  of  knowledge. 

If  knowledge  does  not  alter  its  object,  what  hope  have  we 
of  control?  Of  what  value  is  our  science?  Obviously  the 
object  is  different  wrhen  known  than  when  unknown.  If  knowl- 
edge is  an  essential  factor  in  the  killing  of  germs,  who  can  say 
that  the  germs  are  no  different  when  known  than  when  un- 
known? The  disease  traced  to  these  germs  is  certainly  a  dif- 
ferent object  when  sanitary  precautions  are  observed  than 
when  the  germs  are  allowed  to  run  around  loose.  Here  let  us 
again  remember  that  the  object  of  knowledge  is  its  objective, 
viz.,  in  this  particular  instance  that  of  curing  a  disease ;  it  is 
not  the  mere  becoming  aware  of  a  germ  and  taking  no  action 
with  reference  to  it.  But,  moreover,  even  this  becoming  aware 
involves  a  certain  amount  of  experimentation.  The  act  of 
thought  would  not  be  complete  at  this  stage  of  awareness  for 
the  problem  would  remain  hypothetical.  If  we  take  the  realis- 
tic position  in  regard  to  knowledge  then  our  knowledge  is  use- 
less. If  what  the  realist  holds  is  the  object  of  knowledge,  it 
does,  of  course,  make  no  difference  to  the  object  known.  The 
difficulty  in  holding  this  view  is  that  it  not  only  makes  knowl- 
edge impossible,  but  makes  it  of  no  use,  conceding  its  possi- 
bility. The  paradox  of  the  situation  is  that  the  realist,  who 
builds  his  philosophy  primarily  in  the  interests  of  epistem- 
ology,  simply  begs  the  problem  by  assuming  a  false  object  of 
knowledge,  while  the  pragmatist,  who  has  an  abhorrence  for 
epistemologjr,  concerns  himself  primarily  with  a  method  for 
determining  the  meaning  of  the  object  of  knowledge. 

The  old  Greek  controversy  between  Socrates  and  the 
Sophists  is  still  raging  in  present-day  philosophy  in  a  modified 
form  between  the  pragmatists  and  the  realists.  The  realist 
asks  us  to  go  "back  to  Plato,"  while  the  pragmatist  would 
have  us  move  "on  to  Protagoras."  "From  Plato  to  Prota- 
goras"1 is  Dr.  Schiller's  watch  word.  He  holds  that  it  was 
Plato,  who  by  his  misconception  of  the  function  of  a  concept, 
gave  us  a  static  world  and  that  if  we  desire  a  wrorld  com- 
patible with  change  and  progress,  we  must  move  "on  to  Pro- 
tagoras." In  the  Greek  controversy  Plato  won  out;  we  can- 


1.     Cf.  Studies  in  Humanism,  Essay  II. 


Comparative  Valuation  71 

not  afford  to  let  him  win  today.  To  follow  Protagoras  is  not 
to  return ;  it  is  a  step  forward,  a  movement  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, says  Dr.  Schiller.  At  Plato's  time  the  Protagorean 
relativism  was  horrifying.  The  present  generation  sees  noth- 
ing vicious  in  such  relativism.  It  has  faith  in  intelligence  to 
conceive  the  better  and  act  with  reference  to  it.  Indeed  the 
demand  of  a  progressive  society  to  be  free  to  reconstruct  its 
own  ends  not  only  makes  such  relativism  desirable,  but  makes 
it  imperative.  Furthermore,  judgment  is  not  relative  to  the 
individual  as  an  isolated  and  independent  unit,  but  is  social 
in  character  because  the  individual  himself  is  social.  It  is 
this  social  character  of  judgment  that  corrects  the  "vicious- 
ness"  of  its  relativism.  The  pragmatist  is  not  afraid  of  chaos 
resulting  for  he  has  a  method  for  the  determining  of  values 
and  has  faith  in  intelligence  in  the  application  of  this  method. 
He  sees  no  particular  virtue  in  deceiving  ourselves  in  thinking 
that  our  own  judgments  of  value  are  objective  and  universal, 
while  the  other  fellow,  who  does  not  happen  to  agree  with  us, 
is  tainted  with  subjectivism.  Thus  Professor  Dewey  says: 

'''Because  Mr.  James  recognizes  Jthat  the  personal  element1 
'° inters  into  judgments  passed  upon  whether  a  problem  has  or 
has  not  been  satisfactorily  solved,  he  is  charged  with  extreme 
subjectivism,  with  encouraging  the  element  of  personal  prefer- 
ence to  run  rough-shod  over  all  objective  controls.  Now  the 
question  raised  ...  is  primarily  one  of  fact,  not  of  doc- 
trine. Is  or  is  not  a  personal  factor  found  in  truth  evalua- 
tions ?  If  it  is,  pragmatism  is  not  responsible  for  introducing 
it.  If  it  is  not,  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  refute  pragmatism 
by  appeal  to  empirical  fact,  rather  than  reviling  it  for  subjec- 
tivism. Now  it  is  an  old  story  that  philosophers,  in  common 
with  theologians  and  social  theorists,  are  so  sure  that  personal 
habits  and  interests  shape  their  opponents'  doctrines  as  they 
are  that  their  own  beliefs  are  'absolutely'  universal  and  objec- 
tive in  quality.  Hence  arises  that  dishonesty,  that  insincerity 
characteristic  of  philosophic  discussion  .  .  .  Now  the 
moment  the  complicity  of  the  personal  factor  in  our  philo- 
sophic valuations  is  recognized,  is  recognized  fully,  f rankly, 
and  generally,  that  moment  a  new  era  in  philosophy  will  begin. 
We  shall  have  to  discover  the  personal  factors  that  now  influ- 
ence us  unconsciously,  and  begin  to  accept  a  new  and  moral 
responsibility  for  them,  a  responsibility  for  judging  and  test- 
ing them  by  their  consequences.  So  long  as  we  ignore  this 

1.     Essays  in  Experimental  Logic,  pp.   326,  7. 


72  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Realism 

factor,  its  deeds  will  be  largely  evil,  not  because  it  is  evil,  but 
because,  flourishing  in  the  dark,  it  is  without  responsibility 
and  without  check.  The  only  way  to  control  it  is  by  recog- 
nizing it.  And  while  I  would  not  prophesy  of  pragmatism's 
future,  I  would  say  that  this  element  which  is  now  so  gen- 
erally condemned  as  intellectual  dishonesty  (perhaps  because 
of  an  uneasy,  instinctive  recognition  of  the  searching  of  hearts 
its  acceptance  would  involve)  will  in  the  future  be  accounted 
unto  philosophy  for  righteousness'  sake." 

It  is  this  personal  element  that  the  realist  ignores.  The 
price  he  pays  is  that  he  is  left  in  a  world  without  meaning. 
Because  Plato*  failed  to  recognize  the  functional  value  of 
concepts  and  set  them  up  as  metaphysical  entities,  eternal 
ideas  or  abstract  essences,  ideals  have  been  pitched  in  the 
clouds  as  something  toward  which  we  should  eternally  strive 
but  never  quite  realize.  Our  conduct  with  reference  to  moral- 
ity is  like  a  variable  approaching  a  constant;  we  may  keep 
moving  toward  our  goal  but  never  quite  get  there.  Because 
the  pragmatist  has  no  use  for  such  abstract  ideals,  he  is 
accused  of  having  none  at  all;  he  is  just  moving  but  is  not 
going  anywhere.  He  indulges  in  "action  for  action's  sake" 
but  has  no  end  for  acting.  Thus  Prof.  Perry  tells  the  follow- 
ing story1  that  is  supposed  to  be  characteristic  of  pragmatism. 
"A  negro  had  inadvertently  broken  into  a  wasp's  nest. 
As  he  was  rushing  headlong  down  the  road  he  was  stopped  by 
a  white  man,  and  asked  where  he  was  going.  He  replied,  *I 
ain't  goin'  nowhere,  boss.  I'se  just  leavin'  the  place  where 
I  was  at.' '  For  those  who  cannot  be  moved  without  a  pull 
from  above  this  criticism  may  be  true,  but  for  the  pragmatic 
temperament  which  is  satisfied  with  a  push  from  within  and 
a  reach  toward  the  kind  of  an  ideal  which  intelligence  gener- 
ates, it  is  hardly  fair.  The  pragmatist  thinks  it  better  to 
move  with  reference  to  specific  problems  rather  than  to  rave 
on  about  a  lot  of  abstract  ideals  which  are  meaningless  until 
brought  into  experience  in  relation  to  given  situations.  The 
ideal  for  the  pragmatist  is  his  hypothesis,  the  idea  upon  which 
he  acts  for  the  purpose  of  bettering  a  concrete  situation.  His 
goal  is  that  which  his  problem  sets  and  he  fails  to  see  why 
it  is  necessary  to  have  a  Platonic  essence  as  a  goal  in  order 

1.     Present    Conflict    of    Ideals,    p.    346. 

*The  reference   is   to   the  celestial   Plato  for  there  are   two   Platos,   the   celestial   and   the 
terrestrial,  the  latter  having  to  a  large  extent  been  lost  sight  of  by   the  former. 


Comparative  Valuation  73 

to  be  moving  toward  an  end.  In  fact  he  prefers  to  move  in 
this  way  for  he  sees  that  it  is  the  disregard  of  the  personal 
factor  in  judgments  of  value  together  with  this  loyalty  to 
Platonic  Ideas  that  justifies  untold  suffering  and  misery  on  the 
part  of  concrete  individuals  for  the  sake  of  an  abstract 
humanity.  One  of  the  reasons  that  war  never  realizes  its 
ideals — or  rather  the  ideals  that  were  supposed  to  be  at  stake 
— is  that  the  ideals  themselves  have  been  pulled  down  from 
the  clouds,  and  after  the  excitement  is  over  they  fail  to  func- 
tion because  they  are  blind  and  empty,  void  of  content  and 
without  meaning.  They  have  not  grown  up  on  the  soil  of  in- 
dividual experience.  It  is  this  soil  alone  that  can  give  them 
meaning,  give  them  nourishment  and  vitality  that  they  may 
be  effective.1  The  world  war  is  a  case  in  point.  Pragmatism 
is  not  moving  any  place  in  general,  but  it  does  aim  to  move 
definitely  with  reference  to  particular  problems.  Realism 
may  be  moving  somewhere  in  general  but  gets  nowhere  in 
particular.  It  is  simply  a  question  as  to  which  is  the  better 
way  to  move.  The  pragmatist,  who  sees  no  meaning  in  gen- 
eral movements,  could  equally  as  well  accuse  the  realist  of 
having  no  goal,  since  for  him  a  general  goal  is  no  goal  at  all. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  realist  does  move  in  about  the  same 
way  as  does  the  pragmatist — and  the  idealist  as  well  for  that 
matter.  The  reason  that  the  realist  and  the  idealist  do  so  act 
is  because  they  abandon  their  metaphysical  premises  under 
the  pressure  of  having  to  act  in  life.  It  is  only  in  their  profes- 
sional capacities  that  truth  and  right  are  absolute.  This,  how- 
ever, does  afford  some  consolation  at  times  of  great  crises 
but  the  pragmatist,  whose  duty  it  was  to  laugh  the  absolute 
out  of  court,  is  not  so  successful  in  deceiving  himself* 

The  educational  import  of  the  pragmatic  functional  ideal 
as  the  better  of  which  the  individual  conceives  in  a  concrete 
situation  as  over  against  the  realistic  subsistential,  entitative 
ideal,  is  that  it  enables  an  ideal  to  be  vitalized,  enables  it  to 
function  in  conduct;  it  enables  it  to  get  tied  up  with  the 
nervous  system  in  such  a  way  that  it  finds  expression  for  itself 
in  activity.  The  realistic  entity  is  a  ready-made  form  which 


1.     Cf.   Schiller:     Studies    in   Humanism,   Essay   VI. 

*Mr.  Russell  is   a   good   pragmatist   in   this   respect.     Judging  by  his   attitude  toward   the 

recent    war,    he    evidently    did    not    find    much    consolation    in    the    abstract    ideals    of 

Justice  and  Democracy. 


74  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Kealism 

is  supposed  to  fit  every  situation  and  consequently  applies  to 
none.  It  is  sort  of  a  universal  coat  which  nobody  can  wear. 
In  designing  it  to  fit  everybody  it  practically  fits  nobody.  It 
therefore  is  empty  and  without  content ;  it  possesses  no  mean- 
ing and  hence  can  function  in  experience  only  as  it  is  thrust 
upon  us.  Here  again,  we  must  not  forget  a  favorite  pragmatic 
thesis,  viz.,  that  thinking  is  instrumental  to  conduct.  An  ideal 
that  just  is  cannot  function  in  conduct,  and  hence,  from  the 
pragmatic  viewpoint,  has  no  particular  value.  This  is  the 
fallacy  of  beautiful  moral  sentiments  that  fail  to  express 
themselves  in  action.  It  is  the  morality  of  mere  words ;  words 
have  meaning  only  in  so  far  as  they  express  themselves 
through  conduct.  The  pragmatist  does  not  divorce  theory  and 
practice ;  he  believes  in  thinking  and  acting  in  the  same  world. 
One  cannot  act  in  a  world  of  subsistential  entities  and  an 
ideal  that  is  located  in  such  a  realm  is  impotent  so  far  as 
influencing  conduct  is  concerned.  The  realist  has  a  ready- 
made  meaning  which  we  may  acquire ;  the  pragmatist  has  his 
meanings  in  the  making;  they  arise  through  the  process  of 
inquiry.1 

Both  Prof.  Spaulding  and  Prof.  Perry  accuse  pragmatism 
of  being  "anti-intellectual."2  If  we  mean  by  "anti-intellectual" 
a  thought  that  just  thinks,  the  pragmatist  pleads  guilty  to  the 
charge ;  he  not  only  glories  in  the  fact  but  prides  himself  upon 
not  having  such  a  kind  of  thought.  If,  however,  we  mean  by 
"anti-intellectual"  the  discouraging  and  depreciation  of  intel- 
ligence, the  accusation  is  not  just.  Anti-intellectual  should  not 
be  taken  to  mean  anti-intelligent.  Perhaps  the  realist  does 
not  mean  to  convey  the  latter  meaning  by  the  term,  and  if  not, 
the  pragmatist  has  no  objection  to  being  called  "anti-intel- 
lectual" if  the  realist  gets  any  particular  satisfaction  out  of 
having  it  thus.  No  philosophy  puts  a  higher  premium  on  in- 
telligence than  does  pragmatism,  and  lest  the  realist's  charge 
of  anti-intellectualism  should  convey  the  impression  that  the 
pragmatist  underestimates  or  in  any  way  disparages  the  func- 
tion of  intelligence  for  purposes  of  control,  let  me  quote  once 
more  from  Prof.  Dewey : 


1.  Cf.  Democracy  and  Education. 

2.  Cf.  The  New  Rationalism,  pp.  274-83. 

Present  Conflict  of  Ideals.     Ch.  XX.  Sect.  1,  III. 


Comparative  Valuation  75 

"We  pride  ourselves  upon  being  realistic,  desiring  a  hard-1 
headed  cognizance  of  facts,  and  devoted  to  mastering  the 
means  of  life.  We  pride  ourselves  upon  a  practical  idealism, 
a  lively  and  easily  moved  faith  in  possibilities  as  yet  unreal- 
ized, in  willingness  to  make  sacrifice  for  their  realization. 
Idealism  easily  becomes  a  sanction  of  waste  and  carefulness, 
and  realism  a  sanction  of  legal  formalism  in  behalf  of  things 
as  they  are — the  right  of  the  possessor.  We  thus  tend  to  com- 
bine a  loose  and  ineffective  optimism  with  assent  to  the  doc- 
trine of  take  who  take  can :  a  deification  of  power.  All  peoples 
at  all  times  have  been  narrowly  realistic  in  practice  and  have 
then  employed  idealization  to  cover  up  in  sentiment  and  theory 
their  brutalities.  But  never,  perhaps,  has  the  tendency  been 
so  dangerous  and  so  tempting  as  with  ourselves.  Faith  in  the 
power  of  intelligence*  to  imagine  a  future  which  is  the  projec- 
tion of  the  desirable  in  the  present,  and  to  invent  the  instru- 
mentalities of  its  realization,  is  our  salvation.  And  it  is  a 
faith  which  must  be  nurtured  and  made  articulate :  surely  a 
sufficiently  large  task  for  our  philosophy." 

Compare  the  above  with  this  from  Prof.  Perry : 

"There  is  nothing  dispiriting  in  realism.  It  involves  the2 
acceptance  of  the  given  situation  as  it  is,  with  no  attempt  to 
think  or  imagine  it  already  good.  But  involves  no  less  the 
conception  of  the  reality  and  power  of  life.  It  is  opposed 
equally  to  an  idealistic  anticipation  of  the  victory  of  spirit, 
and  to  a  naturalistic  confession  of  the  impotence  of  spirit.  In 
this  sense  all  bold  and  forward  living  is  realistic.  It  involves 
a  sense  for  things  as  they  are,  an  ideal  of  things  as  they  should 
be,  and  a  determination  that,  through  enlightened  action, 
things  shall  in  time  come  to  be  what  they  should  be*." 

The  obvious  criticism  of  the  realist's  position  at  this  point 
is  that  with  his  realistic  premises,  he  would  find  it  quite  im- 
possible to  make  things  as  they  "should  be."  He  starts  with 
an  "alien  world"  in  which  knowledge  makes  no  difference  in 
the  character  of  the  object  known.  If  this  be  true  how  can 
enlightened  action  in  any  way  influence  the  implications  which 
necessarily  hold  between  propositions  ?  The  realist  must  either 
admit  the  pragmatic  object  of  knowledge  or  confess  the  futili- 
ty of  science  for  purposes  of  control.  If  he  grants  the  prag- 
matist  this  point,  he  is  forced  to  abandon  his  realistic  posi- 
tion ;  if  he  refuses  he  defeats  the  purposes  of  science  and  his 
own  efforts  to  know  are  without  meaning. 


1.     Creative   Intelligence,    pp.    68,    69. 

Present   Philosophical   Tendencies,   p.   347. 
*Italics  mine. 


76  Meaning  in  Pragmatism  and  Eealism 

The  realist  is  so  haunted  by  subjectivism  that  when  the 
pragmatist  insists  upon  the  creative  aspect  of  intelligence,  he 
is  accused  of  manufacturing  a  world  by  sitting  down  and 
thinking  it  into  existence.  This  seems  so  utterly  abhorrent 
to  the  realist  that  he  keeps  telling  us  "the  thing  exists,  the 
thing  exists,  etc.,"  until  such  a  commonplace  begins  to  sound 
profound.  The  pragmatist  has  never  tried  to  deny  the  fact 
that  the  thing  does  exist.  Of  course  it  does  but  why  talk 
about  it?  If,  instead  of  talking  about  things  existing  apart 
from  their  being  known,  the  realist  would  tell  us  that  meaning 
exists  in  such  a  form,  perhaps  much  of  the  misunderstanding 
between  realism  and  pragmatism  might  be  avoided.  When 
pressed  in  his  position,  the  realist  always  gains  a  hearing  by 
coming  back  at  us  with  the  cry  of  "things  exist  apart  from 
their  being  known."  This  is  well  and  good  so  long  as  he  is 
speaking  with  the  disciples  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  but  why  accuse 
the  pragmatist  of  the  Bishop's  sins?  Mr.  Russell  seems  still 
to  be  laboring  under  this  delusion.  He  writes : 

"Dr.  Schiller  says  that  the  external  world  was  first  dis-1 
covered  by  a  low  marine  animal  whom  he  calls  'Grumps,'  who 
swallowed  a  bit  of  rock  that  disagreed  with  him,  and  argued 
that  he  would  not  have  given  himself  such  a  pain,  and  there- 
fore there  must  be  an  external  world.  One  is  tempted  to  think 
that,  at  the  time  when  Prof.  Dewey  wrote,  many  people  in  the 
newer  countries  had  not  yet  made  the  disagreeable  experience 
which  Grumps  made.  Meanwhile,  whatever  accusations  prag- 
matists  may  bring,  I  shall  continue  to  protest  that  it  was  not 
I  who  made  the  world."* 

Nor  is  Mr.  Russell  alone  in  so  protesting  for  he  has  our 
hearty  co-operation  in  thus  protesting.  When,  however,  the 
realist  insists  that  the  implications  of  propositions  are  just 
there  and  that  intelligence*  can  do  nothing  in  the  way  of  con- 
trolling these  implications,  pragmatists  rise  up  in  protest,  and 
despite  realistic  contentions  to  the  contrary,  insist  that  we 
have  a  part  in  the  making  of  the  world,  the  re-shaping  and 
remolding  of  reality.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  intelligence  is 
creative. 


1.  "Professor  Dewey's  'Essays  in  Experimental  Logic'  "  in  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psy- 
chology and  Scientific  Methods,  Vol.  XVI,  No.  1,  p.  26. 

*Throughout  the  discussion  intelligence  has  been  used  in  its  broader  meaning.  See 
author's  article  on  "Ethics  and  Logic"  in  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  April,  '22. 

"Italics    mine. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

John  Dewey — Essays  in  Experimental  Logic. 

John  Dewey — How  We  Think. 

John  Dewey — Democracy  and  Education. 

Bertrand  Russell — Scientific  Method  in  Philosophy. 

Bertrand  Russell — Introduction  to  Philosophy. 

Bertrand  Russell — Philosophical  Essays. 

R.  B.  Perry — Present  Philosophical  Tendencies. 

R.  B.  Perry — The  Present  Conflict  of  Ideals. 

E.  G.  Spaulding — The  New  Rationalism. 

E.  B.  Holt — The  Concept  of  Consciousness. 
A.  W.  Moore — Pragmatism  and  its  Critics. 
William  James — Psychology. 

William  James — Pragmatism. 

William  James — The  Meaning  of  Truth. 

F.  C.  S.  Schiller — Studies  in  Humanism. 
F.  C.  S.  Schiller— Formal  Logic. 
Bernard  Bosanquet — Logic. 

F.  H.  Bradley — Appearance  and  Reality. 
Josiah  Royce — The  World  and  the  Individual. 
M.  T.  McClure—  The  New  Realism. 

Creative  Intelligence. 
The  New  Realism. 
Studies  in  Logical  Theory. 
Garman  Memorial  Volume. 
Commemorative  Volume  to  William  James. 

G.  H.  Mead — "Definition  of  the  Psychical,"   University  of 

Chicago  Decennial  Publications. 
John  Dewey — "The  Reflex  Arc  Concept  in  Psychology,  Psych. 

Rev.  Vol.  Ill,  p.  357. 

A.  W.  Moore — "The  Aviary  Conception  of  Truth  and  Error, 
Jour,  of  Phil.,  Psych,  and  Sc.  Meth.  Vol.  X, 
p.  542. 

Bertrand  Russell — Professor  Dewey' s  "Essays  in  Experiment 
tal  Logic,"  Jour,  of  Phil.,  Psych,  and  Sc. 
Meth.  Vol.  XVI,  No.  1,  p.  26. 


f  I. 


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